


a peony for my petal

by princeshixun



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Homophobia, M/M, Mild Sexual Content, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-01
Updated: 2018-06-03
Packaged: 2019-04-30 17:06:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 30,357
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14501598
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/princeshixun/pseuds/princeshixun
Summary: Flowery boys grew wily, brightly, and prettily. They belonged in gardens, behind poignant vines and with petals between their fingers. They were ravishing and ravished and easily marked.Oh Sehun’s was named Lu Han, and he was unwanted.Oh Sehun was a runner, not a facer, not a hero. He was tired and twenty-two and straight. He was a feigner of courage, and yet, he thought, he would save them all.





	1. hero and not husband

**Author's Note:**

> I would spoil as to what's in here, but then I would regret it.
> 
> Also, I wanted to make it clear that I'm posting this both here and on AFF under princehannie, so yes, this story's mine here, and mine there, and it's not plagiarized.

 

    Oh Sehun was not gay. He was _not gay_. _He was not gay._

 

“I’m not gay,” he hissed. “I’ve told you four hundred fucking times.”

 

    He was ignored. Flowers were placed in his hand.

 

    Lu Han was in his face. He was ugly, really. At twenty, he was soft and looked more like a girl than anything else. If Sehun was going to marry a man, couldn't he have been given a _man_?

 

    Sehun hated Lu Han’s guts. 

 

    He crushed the flowers. Lu Han’s smile was gone and he could breathe again. 

 

    Arrangements were made. He was bought a tuxedo.

 

    Was Lu Han going to wear a dress? Because Sehun had always wanted a bride in flowing white. 

 

    “No dress,” Lu Han laughed. 

 

    Sehun laughed too. And then all night he cried. What was his life coming to? Where was his happiness?

 

    It wasn’t in his parents’ company— probably, all his unhappiness lay there. Because, after all, this marriage was a business arrangement between the owners of two corporate dynasties. Under the contract, he and Lu Han would inherit the joint enterprise, ruling with one together hand. 

 

    He and Lu Han. 

 

    He hated Lu Han. 

 

—

 

    “What’re you gonna do? You’re not actually gonna marry him, are you?”

 

    “What am I supposed to do, Joohyun?”

 

    Sehun’s girlfriend’s eyes were alight. “Run away with me.”

 

    Sehun scoffed, shaking his head. “And be killed by your brothers? No thanks.”

 

    “Don’t be such a coward.”

 

    “A coward, Joo? Do you remember when they caught us in your room?”

 

    A smile graced Bae Joohyun’s face and Sehun thought it was beautiful, even at his expense. 

 

    “Run away with me,” she repeated. 

 

    “No.”

 

    “You coward.”

 

    Sehun let out a frustrated sound. “Do you want me dead?”

 

    “Better than sharing a bed with a _man_ ,” she laughed.

 

    Sehun felt his cheeks color themselves. “Don’t be a bitch, Joo. I’m not sharing a bed with anyone but you.”

 

    “Yeah, while you’re married. I’m still a bitch then, no? Your side-bitch.”

 

    “No.”

 

    “You coward,” she repeated, and left him with his head in his hands. 

 

    Sehun’s fear outweighed everything.

 

•

 

    Lu Han was with his mother. 

 

    “You look beautiful, darling.”

 

    “Thank you.”

 

    He ran his fingers through his freshly colored hair— bright as the sun.

 

—

    

    “Just a week, right?” Sehun asked him, fingers nervous against the wooden table. 

 

    Lu Han didn’t respond. He smiled. 

 

    Sehun looked taken aback before something like disgust crossed his features. It was there for only half a second but Lu Han saw it. He _saw_ it. 

 

•

 

    Sehun was not on speaking terms with his parents. They lived together, in theory. They were destroying his life. 

 

    “On the contrary,” his mother told him, “we are making your life. You can take any woman you want once you have that kind of power. The same goes for your husband.”

 

     _Husband._

 

“He’s not my husband yet.”

 

    “A week means nothing.”

 

—

 

    Sehun was not on speaking terms with his girlfriend. They saw each other every day, in theory. But she pretended not to see him, accompanying her eldest brother into business meetings. She was his princess. 

 

    She was Sehun’s nothing. And then she had him against the wall. 

 

    “You coward. How long are you going to avoid me?”

 

    “Avoid you? You’re avoiding _me_.”

 

    “Can’t you act like a man?” She turned from him, disgusted. 

 

    Sehun had to smile.

 

—

 

    A week meant everything. 

 

    “A week until we have to start sneaking around,” Joohyun said, kicking off her stilettos. “A week until you’re a fag for life.”

 

    “A week until I’m rich.”

 

    “You’re already rich. A week until I’m a _slut_.”

 

    “Slut. I like that on you.”

 

    “Asshole.”

 

—

 

    “Has he no sisters? I’ll marry a twelve year old.” It was suddenly quiet. “—when she’s of age of course,” he stuttered.

 

    “He’s practically a girl himself,” Sehun’s father boomed. He was laughing.

 

    Sehun probably should have found that funny too. 

 

—

 

     _I love you, Joo_. _I love you._

 

She didn’t enjoy saying it back, but he felt it in her gaze, on her lips, and under her touch. 

 

    He liked it on her: the love. 

 

    He liked it on her: the femininity. 

 

—

 

    Lu Han’s lashes were long, like a girl’s. They fluttered against his cheeks. 

 

    His hands were knobby at the knuckles, but his fingers still ran slender and lithe. 

 

    Sehun hated it on him: the beauty. 

 

—

 

    A week compressed itself into short, unbearable days. Days where Sehun’s blood ran cold and his hands sweated in his pockets. 

 

•

 

    Lu Han chose the flowers. They were peonies.

 

    He tasted the cake, and it was like nothing on his tongue. Nothing before, and nothing after. Just like Sehun. 

 

•

 

    What was money to him? Money was paper; it was bendable and breakable and ever-powerful. Money was what his parents loved instead of him. Money was what had raised him, and money was what had left him, there, at twenty-two, to suffer alone. 

 

•

 

    Husband. 

    

    There was no friend, boyfriend, or fiancé. Just husband. 

 

—

 

    His _husband_ was handsome and young. He walked with sure strides and fixed people with a smile unlike any other. Lu Han tried mimicking it. Didn’t work. 

 

    His husband was unique. 

 

•

 

    His husband was a wimp. Lu Han was having trouble lifting an oversized vase of flowers. Sehun supposed he should have helped, as the bigger husband. 

 

_Not husband yet._

 

Joohyun would have laughed. Sehun’s little husband stood at almost Sehun’s height but was so much slighter in frame, so much more unsure in his footwork. His husband was like an old man. 

 

—

 

    Sehun helped because that’s what had been taught to him, as the son of respectable people. 

 

    Lu Han turned away his offer. “It’s okay. I got it.”

 

    He hobbled away. If Lu Han had been a girl, Sehun would probably have offered again. But no, Lu Han was a man, and until they got married, they were just _bros_. 

 

    Sehun watched him fall. 

 

—

 

    There was an ugly red stripe on his arm and he looked at it painfully. Sehun wondered why he was so close to the groom so close to their wedding day. 

 

    “Are you carrying any bandaids?” Lu Han asked. Sehun almost laughed. 

 

    “Why would I be carrying around bandaids? That’s barely a scrape.”

 

    Lu Han was quiet and Sehun gathered stray flowers off the ground. Lu Han had managed to save the vase, but a couple of flowers had gone astray. 

 

    Sehun shoved them back into the glass container. “Here.”

 

—

 

    They were in the wedding hall then, and arrangements were being made. Joohyun appeared and Sehun’s mouth buzzed in want. 

 

    Lu Han watched them talk, his own mouth pleasantly curved. 

 

    “Hello,” Joohyun told him, cheshire-like. 

 

    “Hello.”

 

    And then he turned away. 

 

•

 

    Sehun tested the cake now too. He hated the kind that Lu Han picked. 

 

    “Too sweet.”

 

    Lu Han, accidentally, out of attempted spite, wondered what _he_ tasted like.

 

—

 

    Sehun was two years older than him. He looked at Lu Han in poorly disguised contempt. 

 

    He was handsome. He had beautiful eyes when he saw Joohyun.  

 

—

 

    Joohyun talked to him. 

 

    “You’re not gay, are you?”

 

    “What?”

 

    “If Sehun chooses to sleep with you, you tell me. Because I don’t sleep with fags.”

 

    Lu Han didn’t either.

 

•

 

    “Are you ready?” Sehun asked, revving his motorbike. Joohyun clutched at his waist, her long fingernails digging into him.

 

    “Of course.”

 

    They were pretending to run away, because there were only three nights left until Sehun was no longer himself— no longer Joohyun’s.

 

    “I will always be yours.”

 

    “Drive, Sehun.”

 

    “Wait— are you sure your brothers won’t come after us?”

 

    “ _Sehun_.”

 

    “Okay.”

 

    A shaky breath left his mouth, but Joohyun was warm against his back. She kissed his ear. 

 

—

 

    There was a villa in the sunset, at the edge of the world and the end of the beginning of their lives. 

 

—

 

    Sehun, on the eve of the wedding, was in nervous breakdowns. He felt pain in the part of his heart he’d never felt or known. He felt the fear that overcame him. He felt the hatred and the sorrow, and not only for himself. 

 

    Sehun was a pretender as if he’d never grown up from five; as if he was willing to run away with his girlfriend, who made him as miserable as anything he could remember; as if he wouldn’t make believe to be gay for the rest of his life, lying with a man who was too soft to be anything but a muted Joohyun. Who never glowed until he smiled. Whose smile Sehun hated. 

 

    Sehun was a feigner of courage, and yet, he thought, he would save them all. 

 

 


	2. sehun, again, surprised

 

    It was five in the morning when he stole five wads of cash, drank three cups of water, took a step towards the door, and never, ever looked back. 

 

—

 

    Where would he go? He had friends, but everybody would look there first. Maybe he would just keep driving. Maybe he’d come across somewhere he was meant to be. He lived in a suburban community of the unreasonably wealthy. 

 

    He’d stolen an old car from his father’s endless collection. It would not be missed, with its almost shabby interior and the colorful jingling tassels hanging from the rearview mirror. The car was from back before Sehun’s parents had struck it rich. The car was from back before they’d stopped being people. 

 

    Now they were mere glass figures, careful and calculating and cold. 

 

    They wanted Sehun to be the same way, and Lu Han too. 

 

    Lu Han could be like that. But Sehun wouldn’t. 

 

—

 

    In thirteen hours hours, Lu Han would be in the hall, standing alone at the only chapel that offered service for gay marriages. 

 

    Sehun had been given only one option of a marriage venue, because that was the only one which would “accommodate” him. The knowledge gave him disgust: that he would have to be _accommodated,_ that he wasn’t able to choose where to go to be married.

 

    He wondered if Joohyun would even choose a chapel. She called herself an atheist. 

 

    Sehun wondered about a God; he wanted to believe in one, and sometimes he did. But mostly he doubted. 

 

—

 

    Would Joohyun have been proud at him? For finding the courage; for finding the strength and the confidence.

 

    For going without her. 

 

—

 

    He drove around town aimlessly. Suddenly it was eight and he wondered if anybody had gone to wake him up. He’d had some finances to file before getting ready.

 

    Fuck his job.

 

    He left his cellphone in the folds of his comforter so they wouldn’t be able to track him. Not even Joohyun. 

 

    He missed her already. He’d left her the night before with a kiss and promise. They were supposed to be together after the ceremony. 

 

    Oh Sehun, leaving his ‘bride’ alone in a callous hotel room, on the dusk of their marriage. 

 

—

 

    Oh Sehun, calling Lu Han a bride, when he’d no intention of marrying the man. 

 

    Though _man_ was an awkward term for Lu Han. _Boy_ was more like it. He was a boy, twenty and haloed like an angel. 

 

—

 

    The rose petals would have been wasted, either way, Sehun reasoned. 

 

    Lu Han would be curled up against the headboard, either way. He’d pick at the petals scattered across the bed with those spidery fingers, waiting for someone who wouldn’t arrive. He’d fall asleep and, in the morning, he’d find that someone had come in to take the complimentary newlyweds’ wine. 

 

    And Sehun felt sorry for _himself_.

 

—

 

    Nine, ten, and eleven passed in white noise **.** Would his family call the police? What if he’d been kidnapped? It had happened before, in the dusk of his childhood, back when his parents still paid ransom.

 

    What if he’d been killed? What if he was gone? 

 

    What if nobody cared?

 

—

 

    He was hungry at noon. He left town. They all knew him there. He drove into the city and ordered a burger.

 

    He could burp when he was alone. He ripped a few good ones and then was suddenly so forlorn. Ketchup dripped onto his lap and he could only smell the grease. 

 

    This was Oh Sehun. 

 

—

 

    He drove to the next city and loitered in a mall. He found an old pack of cigarettes and hung one between his lips like some outlaw running away from the big, bad government. 

 

    He fancied the notion of it— to be running away from men with guns rather than a boy in blonde. 

 

—

 

    Things were getting too depressing for Oh Sehun and so he decided to party it up. He could crash one, he figured. Nobody would care. He was good-looking and young. He told funny stories.     

 

     _Like that time I was almost forced into marrying a man but I ran away and got ketchup all over my pants._

 

     _Boy, not man,_ he reminded himself. _Boy and not girl, even though he’s prettier than one._

 

Then he shut his mouth, even though he hadn’t been talking, because he wasn’t supposed to be _thinking_ that. 

 

—

 

    Oh Sehun in the city at four-thirty-seven, when the crowd waned into dispersion before rush hour arrived. Children stumbled behind their parents in yellow boots and excited laughter; men and women strode with brusque purpose in grays and blues and blacks. 

 

    Sehun fed some birds chunks of breads too large and watched them patter around his feet. He’d never fed birds before, never sat there before with nothing to do and nowhere to go and nobody to belong to.

 

    What was Joohyun thinking? He could have been with her, but he’d left her behind.

 

    She would call him a coward again.

 

    Wasn’t he tired of being called that?

 

—

 

    They would probably expect him to show up at the last moment, because that’s what he did. He disappeared and came back right before it started to count. Because he was too afraid. 

 

    This time he couldn’t. It was too much. At the end of his life he would look back and know he’d been a pawned puppet to nothing more than the vice of greed. 

 

—

 

    He stumbled into a college town and found some frat-boy’s party. It was open house. Sehun had just graduated from college the past December so he could begin to work under his father. And here he was again.

 

    It was a relief to be met with rowdiness and the sweeping smell of alcohol— the barely contained smell of sex. The house was large but not large enough to keep it from being hot and stuffy. 

 

    Joohyun was always on his mind and then she wasn’t. Sehun stopped thinking at all. He was talking to girls, so many of them. He kissed a few. They became a blur until he realized the last one wasn’t a girl at all. 

 

    “Hi,” the guy said after Sehun had jerked away in shock, two minutes into making out with him. “I’m Baekhyun.”

 

    “What?” Sehun blinked rapidly. “What? Sorry.” He had a little too much to drink. “I’m not supposed to be here.” He pulled himself from Baekhyun’s grasp, repulsed. 

 

    “Where are you supposed to be? I’ve never seen you around.”

 

    “I’m supposed to be getting married,” Sehun said, and then he laughed. “I’m supposed to be getting married to a guy.”

 

    Baekhyun’s eyebrow quirked. His eyes were lined with something black. “What’s your name?”

 

    “No. They’re probably looking for me. Don’t tell anybody I’m here.”

 

    “Sure.” Baekhyun couldn’t seem to control his mouth. “No-name, you should probably sit down.”

 

    He led Sehun to a sofa and forced him down. Sehun grabbed his wrist before he walked away. “Say, Baekhyun, could I stay here for a while? You’re nice.”

 

    “This isn’t my house.” 

 

    Sehun squeezed his eyes shut. “Can I please talk to whoever owns it?”

 

    “Sure,” Baekhyun said, “he’s right behind you.”

 

    Sehun rubbed his eyes again before turning, only to freeze in his spot. 

 

    He had really thought himself courageous; really tried to escape, only to stumble back to where he’d started. 

 

—

 

    He’d mastered the art of not being surprised, having dated Joohyun for several years— a Joohyun who never ceased to startle or test him in some way or another. 

 

    But there it was. There was Sehun, again, surprised. 

 

    His brideless groom sat at the bar, tinted by the lights strung above him, so he was blue and green and soft pink. There was a faint smile on his lips as he stared into his drink, like he’d won a victory.

 

    Maybe he had. But Sehun had lost again.

 

    “Lu Han.”

 

    Lu Han jumped, startled. “Sehun!”

 

    “What’re you doing here?” Sehun checked the time. “It’s seven-oh-five.”

 

    “Why aren’t you in the wedding hall, Sehun?”

 

    “Why aren’t _you_?”

 

    “I don’t want to marry you.”

 

    That hit Sehun somewhere in his chest. He couldn’t have imagined Lu Han running away as well. To him, Lu Han had seemed quietly compliant. Maybe pleased. 

 

    “So you should have stayed there. Objected to the marriage.”

 

    “How was I supposed to know you’d run away?”

 

    Sehun sat down beside him, ruminating. “Now we look like we’ve eloped.”

 

    Lu Han swallowed before he spoke. “Don’t worry, Sehun,” he said, his voice awfully cheerful, “they know you— we would never do that.” He passed Sehun his drink, which Sehun found was merely a grape juice. “You’re surprisingly calm.”

 

    “I’m drunk.”

 

    Lu Han nodded. “So listen, I’ll be off now. They’re going to be checking here soon, no doubt.”

 

    “Funny they haven’t already.”

 

    “I moved back in too long ago.”

 

    “Just like me.”

 

    What was Sehun doing?

 

    “Do you have an idea of where to go? I have a car.”

 

    “No. I’ll just take the next bus.”

 

    “I’m drunk.”

 

    Lu Han nodded. “So listen, I’ll drive.”

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one's not much longer than the first part, but I think stuff is finally going down. Thank you for reading, and please, if you can, leave a kudos or comment about what you think^^
> 
> You can find me on Twitter at @princeshixun. 
> 
> I'll update again soon~


	3. in the eighth minute

 

    What were the odds?

 

    Why hadn’t Lu Han considered it? It had been difficult at noon, between his tears. He shed them onto a bundle of daisies and let the petals grow wet and limp. The flowers drooped in his hands. 

 

    He’d left without any cash, looking back too many times, and knowing exactly where to go. 

 

—

 

    Byun Baekhyun had opened up immediately. 

 

    “I don’t have a lot of cash,” Baekhyun said.

 

    “I have cards.”

 

    “They’ll track you.”

 

    “They’re mine, Baek. My cards. My bank account.”

 

    “Stay for the party.”

 

    “Does your security deposit cover this?”

 

    “Lighten up. You’ve just run away from your marriage.”

 

    Lu Han had laughed. 

 

    “Stay for the party.”

 

—

 

    “We’re going.”

 

    “So you _are_ eloping.”

 

    Sehun smiled serenely. “I’m not gay.”

 

    “You’re eloping.”

 

    “ _No_ ,” Lu Han told him, voice hushed. “I’ll drop him off at home and then be on my way.”

 

    “I heard that,” Sehun cut in loudly. “I’m not going home. They’re going to murder me.”

 

    “Let them,” Baekhyun declared. “I heard your girlfriend killed a man. She can kill you too.”

 

    “That wasn’t her. That was her brother.”

 

    “Oh, sorry, I can’t tell the difference.”

 

    “Don’t talk shit about Joohyun,” Sehun growled. “You and your filthy fucking mouth. You taste like fish.”

 

    Lu Han pinched Baekhyun.

 

—

 

    It was hard being brave. Lu Han was a straight-A student. Lu Han wrote stories. Lu Han was his mother’s baby. 

 

_“You don’t have a choice in this matter, Lu Han.”_

 

    Lu Han was passive when it came to the things of his heart. His _no_ was when he didn’t nod. 

 

    He nodded. 

 

_“Will you pick out the stuff? Sehunnie has a lot of work these days.”_

 

    He nodded. He was a full-time student _and_ building his own company. 

 

_“This cake is too sweet.”_

 

    He nodded. He’d been told Sehun liked chocolate and that’s what he’d picked. 

 

    Nod, nod, nod.

 

    Sehun, Sehun, Sehun.

 

—

 

    Lu Han didn’t know what to say to him, his betrothed. They probably weren’t betrothed anymore. 

 

    Sehun was on and off. 

 

    “Seriously, you probably did a good thing, running away. Who was going to drive me drunk? I guess I could have stayed with your friend but he doesn’t seem to like me very much.”

 

    Then he lapsed into an eclipsed silent. 

 

    “But you probably told someone you couldn’t marry _me,_ right? Maybe someone else. Another guy?”

 

    “No.”

 

    “No to which?”

 

    “To neither.”

 

    “What do you mean?”

 

    Lu Han didn’t know.

 

—

 

    “Do you have a cellphone on you?”

 

    Lu Han did. He also had his laptop so he could work. 

 

    “Can I use it? I should call Joohyun.”

 

    “What, so she can come get you?”

 

    Lu Han was merely curious, but Sehun dropped the conversation.

 

—

 

    Lu Han drove forty miles to find a motel. 

 

    “Two rooms,” Sehun told the front desk. 

 

    “Two beds,” Lu Han corrected, talking to the woman who worked there. “I don’t want him putting himself in danger. He is speaking to inanimate objects.”

 

    Their room was decent. It wasn’t the five-star cottages Lu Han was used to, but a mattress of straw would have been enough. 

 

    Sehun reached for the phone between their beds, but Lu Han stopped him. “When you run away, you have to mean it. There’s no going back now, Sehun, not even for Joohyun. You have to mean it. It’s going to take a while for this to pass. Maybe a couple weeks.”

 

    “A couple of weeks without Joohyun?” Sehun murmured. 

 

    “Maybe two, maybe four.”

 

    Then Lu Han, turned away, curled up, and fell into sleep. 

 

—

 

    “You have two dozen missed calls. Do you have an aspirin too?”

 

    “Turn off the phone.”

 

    “Joohyun called you.”

 

    “Block her number. I don’t have an aspirin. Maybe the front desk does.”

 

    “Will you ask them? I can’t get up.”

 

    Lu Han sighed, swinging his feet off the bed. Sehun had woken him up, like his own sleep wasn’t precious. He was groggy and he found his cheeks pink. 

 

    “Can I ask you something?” Sehun called from the bed as Lu Han examined himself. “Why do you make noises in your sleep?”

 

—

 

    Lu Han stuttered. “Do I?”

 

    “I mean, I barely slept all night.”

 

    “I’m sorry. Did I say anything bad?”

 

    Sehun sat up, meeting him eye to eye, smiling just a little. “No, you’re okay. But who’s Jongin?”

 

—

 

    Kim Jongin was nobody and everybody. Kim Jongin was ever-present and forever gone. 

 

    Kim Jongin wasn’t his.

 

•

 

    Lu Han rushed him into checking out of the hotel. 

 

    “We have to pay,” he said, and then pulled out a credit card. Sehun halted in surprise. 

 

    “You can’t use that.”

 

    “It’s mine.”

 

    “No. We’ll pay in cash.” He dug around his bag until he found his wads of money. “I’m loaded.”

 

    Lu Han smiled. 

 

—

 

    “You’re okay to drive?”

 

    “Yeah.”

 

    “Okay.” Lu Han shifted his backpack. “Stay discreet. You should probably drive out some more. Kill time in the next city. Or you can go back now, and face the wrath in its fresh.”

 

    He spoke clearly, beautifully, though he was usually quiet. Sehun thought he should have liked to hear the boy talk more. 

 

    “You sound like you’ve done this before. Wait— aren’t you coming with?”

 

    “You wanted to escape me, Sehun, and I you. When we’ve avoided a lifetime of companionship, why find it in moments of freedom? Don’t let them find me. I need a break. I’m taking the next bus out of here. Thanks for the room,” Lu Han said, leaning against the door of Sehun’s car. 

 

    “Thanks for not marrying me.”

 

    Lu Han smiled. 

 

—

 

    Lu Han was right, Sehun told himself, as Lu Han walked away. They’d been trying to escape each other this whole time. 

 

    Except, the weather had gone awry and it was beginning to rain. Lu Han wasn’t wearing more than a thin coat. How far was he going to walk?

 

    He pulled out of the parking lot, eyes still flickering back towards the disappearing figure. 

 

    He drove one, two, four minutes before he turned around. 

 

    In the eighth minute he found Lu Han at a bus stop, curled up against the bench, just as Sehun had imagined him against their bed. And then he wanted to turn back, but Lu Han had already spotted him. 

 

    He rolled down the window. “Would you rather freeze to death than spend time with me?”

 

    Lu Han watched him. 

 

    “I’ll take you where you need to go.”

 

    “Okay.”

 

—

 

    He didn’t know when the hate in his chest had melted. Maybe it was Lu Han, shivering and blue-fingered.

 

—

 

    He certainly did not feel any different about Lu Han. He missed Joohyun. 

 

—

 

    Lu Han was silent and blank. He watched his fingers, curled them, turned his hand around and then quirked each individual finger to make sure it worked. Like a child counting for only the sixth time. 

 

    “Where are we going?” Sehun asked. 

 

    “I was taking a bus to Cheongju.”

 

    So that was where they’d go. 

 

    “What’s in Cheongju?”

 

    “Nothing.”

 

    “Use your phone. Find out what’s in Cheongju. If I’m running away from home, I’m gonna have a good time doing it.”

 

    “You don’t have to stay—“

 

    “I’m driving you out there. The least you could do is offer me some hospitality. Do you know how far it is? Four hours by car. You’d be stuck in that fucking bus for a whole day, freezing your ass off. You can say _thank you_.”

 

    Lu Han looked away.

 

—

 

    They stopped for a moment, and Sehun got a drink of water. He turned around and his passenger seat was empty. 

 

—

 

    He cursed and decided to leave. If Lu Han was going to be a bitch, that was on _him_.

 

    He turned the car around after only three minutes, and found Lu Han standing outside of the bathroom, mouth twisted in some weird, uncomfortable way. 

 

    “You could have at least left my stuff.” Sehun discovered Lu Han’s luggage was still where he’d left it, in the backseat. 

 

    Sehun soured halfway through a sorry. 

 

—

 

    Joohyun never said sorry. That was always Sehun. It was always Sehun who said sorry. 

 

Joohyun never said please or thank you. That wasn’t Sehun either. Sehun took what he wanted and left what he didn’t.

 

    Lu Han wasn’t worth it.

 

—

 

    Silence was eerie to him so he played music. Because otherwise he’d start hearing Lu Han’s voice again in his head— the way he sounded when he slept, so young and oddly desperate. 

 

    Lu Han didn’t react to his music in any way, except that he fell asleep. Sehun would have been insulted but mostly he was intrigued. Lu Han had gotten a full eight hours the night before. It should have been Sehun sleeping.

 

    He let the boy sleep until he got bored. 

 

    “Wake up.” He shook Lu Han. “Dude.”

 

    “Dude,” Lu Han murmured, his head bobbing a little. Sehun took to punching him softly. Lu Han flinched, sitting straight up. 

 

    “You’re right. I have work to do.”

 

    He pulled out his computer and began typing furiously. There, that was what had come out of Sehun’s wanting entertainment. He turned up his music and for the next few minutes he completely muted out the clatter of Lu Han’s fingers.

 

    Then Lu Han’s head was in his hands, and he was crying. 

 

—

 

    Sehun couldn’t deal with this right now. People didn’t usually cry in front of him. The last time Joohyun had cried was because she’d wanted something. So what did Lu Han want? He pulled over.

 

    “What?” he asked. “What do you want? Why are you crying? We’re not getting married, why are you acting like this?”

 

    Lu Han merely shoved his computer at Sehun. Sehun frowned at the screen. It was full of jibber-jabber. Random words made of random letters. None of it was comprehensible and Lu Han had been typing for more than five minutes. 

 

    “I’ve never done this before,” Lu Han confessed. “I’ve never done this before.”

 

    Sehun sighed, hands in stress, feet in stress, mind in stress. “Me neither.”

 

—

 

    “Do you want me to drive?”

 

    “Yeah.” Sehun wanted to _nap_ , not listen to a stranger cry. “But no crying.”

 

    “And no calling Joohyun,” Lu Han said, holding out his hand. “Give me my phone back.”

 

    Sehun was almost petulant, handing the cellphone over. He’d taken it from Lu Han’s pocket as the younger slept. 

 

    He didn’t know why he wanted to badly to self-sabotage his own plans. Joohyun would track him down. 

 

    Why did he want to be controlled by her? And now Lu Han was controlling him too. 

 

    Lu Han was a careful driver, sniffling every once in a while. 

 

    “Can I at least have your computer?” 

 

    “Haven’t you brought your own entertainment? A book?”

 

    Sehun opened up his laptop. 

 

    “Stop.”

 

    Lu Han probably had some porn on there somewhere. He searched for videos. 

 

    “Stop, Sehun,” Lu Han repeated, car veering a little off course. 

 

    “Be careful,” Sehun warned, scrolling until he spotted a human face between countless work files. He double-tapped. 

 

    A golden boy filled the screen, smile as radiant as the sun. “Hannie,” he sang, bright and clear. 

 

    Lu Han burst into tears again.

 

—

 

     _Sorry,_ Sehun wanted to say. _You had told me. I never listen. Who is he?_

 

“Let me drive,” he said. 

 

     _Did I take you from him?_

 

“Pull over.”

 

    It was Jongin, Sehun knew. Jongin of dreams, Jongin of gold, Jongin of Lu Han’s. 

 

    Sehun of Joohyun’s.

 

    Sehun knew where Lu Han had picked up his smile.

 

—

 

    They didn’t talk again, and this time Sehun could feel Lu Han’s anger. 

 

    He wished Lu Han would tell him off, force him to apologize.

 

    And then they were stuck in traffic, and a four-hour journey became five. 

 

    Two more hours together and not a word between them. Lu Han was on his computer again, typing away, never looking up. 

 

    But Sehun didn’t care, did he? Of course not.

 

—

 

    They found Cheongju in the evening of afternoon— in that precious time when the blue sky was warm and nostalgic and one couldn’t imagine night ever coming to steal it. Four hours away it wasn’t raining, and Lu Han wasn’t crying. 

 

    His nose was red and his blonde hair was limp, but when Sehun held a door open for him, he was nodding a little, smiling a little, and looking a little like the sun.

 

    “Two rooms,” Lu Han said.

 

    “Single beds,” Sehun added. 

 

    “Do you want two right beside each other?”

 

    Lu Han didn’t answer, but after a moment of hesitation, Sehun decided yes. 

 

•

 

    Lu Han went straight to bed and fell into a sleepless, mindless trance. The day had been so hard on him. He was overwhelmed. 

 

    He should have been angry with Sehun, who invaded his privacy, who couldn’t choke out an apology, who left him without so much as three cents. Who had come back. But that didn’t matter to Lu Han. He didn’t understand Sehun, and he didn’t want to. He never had. 

 

    Their rooms were connected by a pair of doors. Lu Han didn’t bother opening his. 

 

    It was possible to hear from the adjacent room. He heard a bang and then some cursing. 

 

    He was embarrassed Sehun had heard him the night before, and he prayed it wouldn’t happen again. It was probably that he’d needed some comfort. 

 

    He could remember feeling this cold. 

 

—

 

    Sehun slammed the door shut on his way out, and Lu Han turned over in bed. Maybe he could sleep now.

 

—

 

    An hour later he sat up and logged onto his computer again. There was wifi in the hotel. He could work. 

 

    But then the emails started flooding in and the last one was from his mother. 

 

    She knew, he thought, that no matter what, he’d always be with his work computer. 

 

    There was warmth in his bones, and he deleted the email without opening it. It was good to know he was loved, but he needed to be brave. 

 

—

 

    Later he realized he was still wearing his smelly rain-wet, sun-dried clothes, and shook them off. He cranked up the heat and cracked his partitioning door to find Sehun’s was already opened. 

 

    He peered inside the room to see it entrenched in chaos. The sheets weren’t even on the bed, bottles were strewn as far as the bathroom, and the air conditioner cranked out unnecessarily hot air. 

 

    Hot air. 

 

    Lu Han scanned his own space for an AC and found one in the back, under the window.  He set it to a steamy thirty Celsius and figured he may as well take a shower. 

 

    Hotel shampoos were the epitome of travel-living— drying the life out of hair, scalp, and soul. 

 

    Television? He wondered when Sehun would be back. 

 

    A movie and a half later someone was knocking on his door. 

 

    “I forgot my keys,” Sehun confessed, eyeing his bare chest. 

 

    Lu Han stepped aside to let him in. “I showered. You shower too.”

 

    “I smell.”

 

    “Like forty different people.”

 

    “You smell like a girl.” 

 

    Lu Han couldn’t tell if that was a compliment or not. Sehun _did_ ultimately like girls. 

 

    Sehun stepped right into Lu Han’s shower, shutting the door on him. 

 

    “By the way,” he said, afterwards, “there’s a restaurant downstairs. Order something.”

 

    “I’m not hungry.” 

 

    “I am.”

 

    “You order.”

 

    “ _You_ order.”

 

    “ _Why?_ ”

 

    “I’m paying. The least you could do is order for me,” Sehun said before disappearing into the abyss of a room he’d created. 

 

    Lu Han heard him curse at the sight of it and laughed into his pillow. 

 

—

 

    It was impossible to go wrong with chicken. 

 

    That’s what Lu Han had thought, anyways, until Sehun complained about it not being juicy enough.

 

    “What?” Lu Han said. “Did you want a eight-ounce steak rarely done? Is that what you meant by ‘ _you_ order?'”

 

    “Yes?”

 

    Lu Han had no words.

 

—

 

    There was some movie playing on the channel where they always showed overly-sappy films. 

 

    Sehun cried at the end. 

 

    “I’m not crying,” he said, drowning in tears. “You’re crying. Fucking coward.”

 

    “Fucking coward,” Lu Han echoed. 

 

—

 

    “By the way,” Sehun said afterwards, “there’s nothing to do here.”

 

    “I know.”

 

    “You didn’t ask, but I didn’t call her.”

 

    “I know.”

 

•

 

    Was he forgiven? Lu Han didn’t betray any emotion. He’d told Sehun he wasn’t hungry and then eaten more than half their share of food. And then he fell asleep suddenly, which Sehun realized when Lu Han’s head lolled forwards onto his shoulder. 

 

    Forgiven enough, close enough. Sehun tried shoving him off without waking him up, but he couldn’t seem to, so he laid Lu Han back in gentleness Joohyun never allowed. 

 

     _Goodnight._

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading ^^ 
> 
> This chapter's title is my favorite so far, because in the eighth minute Sehun finds Lu Han is when they really begin to stick together-- when they really form something unique to themselves. 
> 
> The last scene isn't a cliffhanger this time, but I thought it was a good ending place. 
> 
> Please leave a comment if you have anything to say about the story thus far, or the chapter itself.


	4. almost-husbands

 

    Lu Han was awake when he was awake. Something painful throbbed from behind his forehead. Hangover. 

 

    “How much cash did you bring?” Lu Han asked. He was dressed in more than boxers now, but he still looked bare in a mere plain white. 

 

    “Plenty to last months.”

 

    Lu Han nodded. 

 

    Sehun dressed in black and brushed back his inky hair.

 

    Lu Han smoothed down his white-blonde.

 

    “Opposites.”

 

—

 

    Breakfast was complimentary. Sehun ate and ate until he was going to burst, and then he drank apple juice. 

 

    “Apple juice,” Lu Han said. 

 

    “Cranberry,” Sehun responded, wrinkling his nose in sight of Lu Han’s drink. 

 

    “It’s healthy.”

 

    “You’re young. Live a little.”

 

    “Live a little,” Lu Han repeated, as if turning the words over on his tongue. “Live a lot. Or have lived. Never live. _Die_.”

 

    “You’re weird.”

 

    “We tell each other to live. But I’m breathing and you're breathing. How can you measure my breaths in the moments of your life?”

 

    “Who hurt you? What did you eat?”

 

—

    Lu Han decided to discover the nothingness of Cheongju that day. 

 

    He lingered in bookstores, trailing fingers over hardcovers and softcovers and the pictures of flowers. 

 

    “Peonies,” he said, pausing at a flurry of purple and pink.

 

    “Huh? Penis?”

 

    Lu Han laughed. 

 

—

 

    “So be truthful,” Sehun said, opening his menu for lunch. “Why didn’t you want to marry me?”

 

    “Why didn’t you want to marry _me_?”

 

    “I’m not gay.”

 

    “Exactly.”

 

    “So if I _was_ gay…”

 

    Lu Han gave him a wavering look.

 

    “Maybe if you were gay you’d be someone else.”

 

    “Like Jongin?”

 

    Lu Han swallowed. “They have steaks here, Sehun. Look. Eight ounces, marinated in wine; served with potatoes, beans, and carrots.”

 

    Sehun took the stiff paper from his stiff hands. “That’s the dinner menu.”

 

—

 

    He was inclined to feel relief that he was absolutely sure Lu Han didn’t want him at _all_ , but then he was somehow disappointed. It was undeniably thrilling to be in the face of dangerous pursuit.

 

—

 

    Dangerous pursuit wouldn’t be the right words for Lu Han.

 

—

 

    Sehun relaxed considerably after lunch, going so far as to gleefully shove Lu Han roughly. 

 

    Lu Han stumbled a little but Sehun pretended not to notice, instead pointing towards a club that had opened across the street. 

 

    “We’re going there tonight, bud.”

 

•

 

    There was no denying Sehun that night. He was so eager one would think him single and jobless. 

 

    “Let’s go, let’s go,” he rushed Lu Han off his laptop and out of the hotel room. “The ladies— and boys— won’t wait forever.” 

 

    Lu Han didn’t want boys. Lu Han wanted to finish his work, have some tea, and go to sleep.

 

    “Won’t you be cheating on Joohyun?”

 

    “She won’t care. She gets it, Lu. We’re a couple, not each other’s owners.”

 

    Lu Han couldn’t imagine it.

 

    Sehun mussed his hair with the gel they found in the bathrooms and then mussed Lu Han’s too. He dressed Lu Han in his black jacket and gave him three bills in cash. 

 

    “Matching,” Lu Han said.

 

—

 

    “Fist bump.”

 

    “Why?”

    “Aren’t we bros? Friends?”

 

    “Almost-husbands.”

 

    Sehun laughed. “Do you want some eyeliner? The way Baekhyun did it?” It would look good on him.

 

    “No. Why are you carrying eyeliner?”

 

    “I’m not.”

 

—

 

    The place pulsated with every footstep Lu Han took and every breath he puffed out. He kept a finger curled around the seam of Sehun’s shirt, gone unnoticed. Sehun knew his way around and left him at the bar. 

 

    “Don’t drink too much.”

 

    Lu Han wasn’t a drinker, and he watched Sehun be pulled into the crowd until he was as gray and colored as the rest of them. And then he wondered why Sehun had brought him, if he was just going to dump him. Was that what friends did? 

 

    Jongin had never taken him here, or anywhere else. Jongin kept him in warm corners and starlights and secrets. 

 

    Secrets like the birth mark on Jongin’s tummy and the beauty spot on Lu Han’s thigh. Secrets like kisses and Jongin’s lips, which against his forehead, had faded like old ink on old paper. Secrets that didn’t mean to Lu Han anymore what they had meant to Jongin, when Jongin was Jongin and not a blot in memory. 

 

    Lu Han wasn’t a drinker but his vision was blurry and the bartender was nice so he asked for a drink and then two more. 

 

    And then someone was smiling at him like he knew everything about Lu Han. 

 

    “Hi,” Lu Han said, shy. 

 

    “I’m Minjun,” the guy said. “And you’re cute.”

 

    “I’m Lu Han.”

 

    “Lu Han. Let me get you a drink.”

 

    Lu Han smiled. “Thank you.”

 

    The guy was handsome, in a Sehun way, but he didn’t treat Lu Han like shit. Not yet, anyways. 

 

    “Are you from around?”

 

    “No.”

 

    Minjun’s fingers were under his chin. 

 

    “You look so young.”

 

    “What’s young to you?”

 

    “You’re not a minor are you?”

 

    “No.” Lu Han leaned into his fingers. They were warm, soft, and his mind was fuzzy. He’d let Minjun control his face, his hands, even his feet if he wanted. Something was snaking up his thigh, into the strap of his jeans. 

 

    “Are you here alone?”

 

    “No,” someone interrupted, and the warmth was gone. “He’s not. Fuck off.” Lu Han was yanked back by the collar. “I told you not to drink.” 

 

    “Sehun.” Minjun was stalking off and Lu Han reached after him, but Sehun’s grip was too tight.

 

    “Let’s go.”

 

    “Where’s he going?”

 

    “Are you stupid?”

 

    Lu Han was finally angry and he rounded up on his companion. “What the fuck was that for?”

 

    Sehun was taken aback for a moment before he tightened his grip and Lu Han was on the tips of his toes. He was choking. “Are you fucking stupid? Have you never been out before to know when someone’s trying to hurt you? Are you _stupid_?”

 

    “Stop it,” Lu Han gasped. 

 

    Sehun pulled him closer and his vision was beginning to spot. “Why are you so fucking soft?” 

 

    “Sehun,” Lu Han pulled at Sehun’s fingers and Sehun let him go suddenly. Lu Han doubled over, heaving. “Sehun.”

 

    But Sehun was gone. 

    

—

 

    Lu Han got a cab back to the hotel, defeated and strangely hot. He was feeling hot. 

 

    Maybe it was embarrassment.     

 

    He closed his door between their rooms, shut off all the lights, and lay in his bed. 

 

     _Why are you so fucking soft?_  

 

    He fidgeted under the covers. Why was he so soft?

 

    Why wasn’t he soft? Why was he _hard_?

 

    So embarrassing. 

 

—

 

     _Jongin, Jongin, Jongin._

 

_Jongin, Jongin, Jongin._

Did friends hurt each other like that? Baekhyun had always pet his hair and given him funny kisses. Jongin, before they became more, never so much as touched him. Their first touches were at the fingertips. 

 

    Not being choked half to death. 

 

    He hoped Sehun had left a mark.

 

    He was never speaking to the drunk bastard again. 

 

_—_

 

 _“_ Lu Han?” Sehun was banging on his door. “Lu?”

 

    Lu Han ignored him, turning over in his bed. He heard Sehun unlock his own room and clamber over to their partition, which Lu Han had shut on his own end.

 

    Sehun breathed an audible sigh of relief. “Lu Han. Lu Han. Are you awake? I’m sorry.”

 

—

 

    “I wanted to be friends, you know? All the trouble we’ve gone through— I thought we could be friends in the way that I’m friends with my friends. We could go out and drink and have fun, even though— even though you’re you; you like boys, you don’t drink and you can’t carry a vase full of flowers farther than four feet. I was angry that I was worried about you; I was angry you were angry with me for protecting you when I didn’t _want to_.

 

    “But you’re you. And I’m sorry. I miss Joohyun and it’s making me crazy.”

 

    Lu Han had never a penchant for staying angry, to the point where people called him jaded. He was not jaded, and he was furious— furious because he was crying and cold and still very, very hard. 

 

    “Go away, Sehun.”

 

—

 

    He dreamt of his Jongin; his Jongin’s eyes and smile and beautiful, beautiful body. Jongin was out of a dream.

 

    Lu Han saw him before his very eyes and he cried but his cries were muffled when Jongin touched him.

 

    Jongin only lived in dreams and photographs.

 

—

 

    Lu Han ate breakfast alone. Cranberry juice again because it was healthy. Then apple for its youth-rendering qualities. 

 

    Sehun caught him there, avoiding his eyes and shuffling around. He looked like a mess in the beautiful way that only rich people could pull off.

 

    Lu Han stared at him from three tables away. He had aspirin. Probably Sehun needed some too. 

 

    He passed Sehun’s table on his way out, leaving two tiny, tubular pills in his wake. 

 

•

 

    Why did Lu Han have to cry in his sleep? Why did he have to whimper _Jongin_? Why did his voice have to be weirdly tolerable enough that Sehun thought about him saying _Sehun_ instead? It had been momentarily, but there nonetheless.

 

    Sehun was going crazy without Joohyun. And he’d been intoxicated as hell. It wasn’t his fault. 

 

    Lu Han left him two pills on his way out. Sehun downed them with cranberry juice and thought about following the younger out. 

 

    Joohyun was always mad, but she wasn’t really. Usually Sehun said or did something to her and she wanted him going after her, apologizing on his knees. 

 

    Was that what Lu Han wanted? Who did Lu Han think he was?

 

    “Lu Han,” he called. “Wait.”

 

    Lu Han turned around. 

 

    Sehun was speechless. He hadn’t thought Lu Han would respond at first call. 

 

    “Uh— I’m sorry, again. I hadn’t meant to hurt you.”

 

    “Don’t choke me again, dude,” Lu Han said, and then he smiled. 

 

    Sehun had to smile back. 

 

—

 

    Lu Han watched him eat. He looked so thoughtful, sincere, and Sehun was only eating pancakes. 

 

    Lu Han drizzled chocolate onto his stack. “Smile.”

 

    Sehun bared his teeth. “What are you doing today, Lu?”

 

    “Running away is surprisingly boring, Mister Oh. Maybe I’ll read.”

 

    “Grow a tree too.”

 

    “You’re funny, Sehun.”

 

    “I miss Joohyun.”

 

    “I’ll miss Joohyun for you. Find something to do or somewhere to go.”

 

    “Do you want to leave here?”

 

    “If you’re sure I can’t grow my tree.”

 

—

 

    “Let’s take a road trip.”

                            

    “Let me read.”

 

    “Let’s take a road trip. You can read in the car.”

 

    “Let me read, _dude_ ,” Lu Han said and Sehun shut up. 

 

—

 

    Lu Han’s hair was like a fiery crown under the sun. 

 

    “Clean your room,” he said, and his word was obeyed. One did not simply defy a prince. 

 

—

 

    “Let’s leave in the morning,” Lu Han said between flipping pages. “Let’s go to the beach.”

 

    “You like the beach.”

 

    “No. I figured it would give you somewhere to drive to.”

 

—

 

    “We should get more clothes,” Lu Han said, staring at his two shirts and two pants. “I sleep naked.”

 

    “Yeah, I didn’t need to know that.”

 

—

 

    They dined five star. 

 

    “Let me use my cards,” Lu Han said. “I’m afraid for your stack of money.”

    

    “I would rather not be found,” Sehun said, and finally he meant it.

 

—

 

    “I’m working,” Lu Han said. 

 

    “They know you’re alive. What about me?”

    “Call her. It’s been four days, Sehun. If you want to, go for it.”

 

    Sehun went for it. 

 

    She picked up on the last ring. “Hello?”

 

    “Joo.”

 

    “ _Asshole_ ,” she hissed. “Where are you?”

 

    “I couldn’t do it, Joo. You know what it was like.”

 

    “Where is _he_?”

 

    “Who? What do you mean?”

 

    “He’s gone too. Tell me you’re not with him.”

 

    “I’m not. He’s gone? Lu?”

 

    Lu Han glanced over at him. “Yeah. We were afraid you two left together.”

 

    “Why would I ever?” Sehun laughed nervously. “Listen, Joo. I’ll be back soon. I’m hiding out until it blows over. Don’t tell anyone where I am.”

 

    “Fine. But don’t think I’m okay with this. I fucking asked you to go _with me_ and your ass said _no_. And now you’re out there doing what? Getting drunk every night? Fucking girls? You stupid—“

    Sehun hung up on her. 

 

    “Well that didn’t help at all. I probably should’ve called Chanyeol or something.”

 

    Lu Han nodded at him sagely. “Bros before hoes.”

 

—

 

    “What size do you wear?”

 

    “Small? Medium?”

 

    “Of course,” Sehun tugged on his shoelaces. “I’ll be back. Are sweatpants cool?”

 

    “I’d rather not sweat but they’re alright.”

 

    “I’ll see you later then, bud.” Sehun patted him on the shoulder. 

 

    “Bye _buddy_.” 

 

    None of the words sat right on Lu Han’s tongue, which made all of it hilarious. He was like a child trying to speak an adult’s language, and yet there was something mocking in it. He was growing on Sehun. That wasn’t as hard to admit as he thought it’d be. 

 

    He was waiting for the elevator to close when Lu Han appeared, out of breath. “Wait. Let me come with.”

 

    “I thought you wanted to read,” Sehun held the elevator open for him. 

 

    “Yeah, well, I also don’t want to look like I’m going to murder someone. I don’t like black. I know you’ll buy me black.”

 

    “Black goes with everything.”

 

    “So does white.”

 

    “But you’ll wear blue.”

    

    “This is why I’m coming.”

 

—

 

    Sehun tried on too many different outfits. Lu Han pulled out his book again. 

 

    “Do you like this one?”

 

    “I like all of them, Sehunnie,” Lu Han answered, without looking up. 

 

    “Sehunnie?”

 

    “You’re Sehunnie.” 

 

    The last time anybody had called him Sehunnie, he and Joohyun were fourteen and perfect strangers.

 

    “You’re Hannie?”

 

    Lu Han’s expression was afflicted. “Just call me Lu.”

 

—

 

    Lu Han wanted ice cream. Who was Sehun to refuse him?

 

    “Chocolate,” Lu Han said.

 

    Lu Han couldn’t eat it all. Sehun finished it. 

 

    “You’ve ice cream on your nose.” Lu Han used his finger to wipe the food off then popped it into his mouth. 

 

    “That’s gross.”

 

    “You showered this morning. What did Joohyun say to you about me?”

 

    “You ask now? She asked me if we’d left together.”

 

    “Oh. Sorry.”

 

    “I said no. I haven’t seen you.”

 

    “Haven’t seen me, haven’t heard me, haven’t choked me.”

 

    Sehun looked at him witheringly. “I don’t say sorry to anyone.”

     

    “Except Joohyun.”

 

    “Except Joohyun.”

    

    “Except Lu Han. You say sorry to Lu Han.”

 

    “That’s because Lu Han forgives me.”

 

    “That’s because Lu Han is jaded.”

 

    “Jaded? At twenty?”

 

    “I want to die.”

 


	5. no homo, bro

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is longer and it's picked up some speed between the two~

 

    Sehun looked at him unbearable, unreasonable, unexpected concern. 

 

    “Don’t you ever wanna just disappear? Be at the end of the world?”

 

    Sehun fidgeted. “I do, I do, but I don’t want to die. Why would you want to die?”

 

    Lu Han wanted to not be alone. Lu Han had _tried_ to marry Sehun, because he wanted to not be alone. Even if it meant lying in bed by himself every night and waking up to nothing. He would belong to someone, even if that someone was Sehun, the Sehun who hated him. 

 

    Maybe leaving the marriage was the first part in the death he had ensured himself, maybe at twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-three. Except it had all gone backwards. Sehun was sitting in front of him instead of behind him, watching him instead of Joohyun. His eyes were seeing for Lu Han, lips moving for Lu Han, life being lived for Lu Han. It would only be a moment, but Lu Han collected moments, and he would make an infinity. 

 

    “Right now I don’t want to die,” Lu Han said. “I live for moments that people make. Like the ice cream on your nose.”

 

    Sehun flung melted vanilla at him.

 

—

 

    Sehun wiped it off with his fingers, in a molten pressure. Lu Han closed his eyes. 

 

—

 

    Lu Han said, “Let’s use a map.”

 

    “Then you can’t read. You have to do all the work; tell me where to turn, tell me where to stop.”

 

    “I changed my mind.”

 

    “We leave at the break of day.”

 

    “Yes, sir.”

 

—

 

    Sehun cried onto his shoulder. 

 

    “We’re watching porn.”

 

    “Makes me miss Joo.”

 

    “Why are you so soft?” Lu Han asked. “Why are you so soft? Why am I so soft? Why aren’t we men?”

 

    “Fucking coward,” Sehun said bitterly. 

 

    “Fucking coward,” Lu Han echoed agreeably.

 

—

 

    Lu Han pet his hair. “I miss Jongin every day.”

 

    “Where is Jongin?”

 

    “He’s dead.”

    

    Sehun jerked away from him. “What?”

    

    Lu Han blinked back his tears, clearing his throat.

 

    “I’m sorry,” Sehun said.

 

    “See? You say sorry to Lu Han.”

 

    Sehun smiled, his mouth brushing against Lu Han’s ear. “Lu Han, and only Lu Han.”

 

—

 

    “Are you awake?” Sehun asked, tugging at Lu Han’s comforter. 

 

    “Awake,” Lu Han said, cracking open an eye and resisting Sehun’s force. “Stop. I’m naked.”

 

    His cheeks were pink and Sehun said, “I’m in the next room.”

 

    It was early morning— dawn was creeping into the air and Lu Han was cold in just his underwear. 

 

    Sehun followed him into the bathroom and waited while Lu Han peed. 

 

    “Do you mind, _bro_?”

    

    “Hurry up,” Sehun said. “I gotta check us out.”

 

    “Check me out,” Lu Han said. He was tired. 

 

    “I will if you don’t hurry the fuck up and stop pissing.”

 

    “Don’t look at me. It’s private.”

 

    Lu Han began brushing his teeth. Sehun hovered behind him. 

 

    “Don’t you have something to _do_?”

 

    “No.”

 

    “Are you okay, Sehunnie?”

 

    “Yes, let’s just go.”

 

    “Something’s bothering you,” Lu Han said, following him out of the bathroom. “What is it?”

 

    “Let’s go, Lu.” He tossed his own clothes at Lu Han’s head.

 

    “They’re too big,” Lu Han said.

 

    “Stay warm.”

 

—

 

    “Eat.”

 

    Lu Han shoved waffle into his mouth. Sehun made his way to the front desk, slapping a couple bills down onto the hardwood. Sehun came back. 

 

    “Eat, Sehunnie.”

 

    “Don’t call me Sehunnie.”

 

    “What happened, Oh?”

 

    “Nothing, Lu. Fuck off.”

 

    Lu Han nodded. 

 

—

 

    “Joohyun—“ Sehun confessed in the car, “Joohyun said she’s going to get married.”

 

    “Why did you call her? It’s barely been a week. Sehun.”

 

    “If that was Jongin, you’d have called too.”

 

    “Don’t talk about Jongin.”

    

    “I gotta go back,” Sehun said.

 

    “Go then.”

 

    “Don’t judge me.”

 

    “Nobody’s judging you. Just you.”

 

    Sehun jabbed at the horn. “Fuck. I can’t believe this.”

 

    “I can’t believe you.”

 

    “Tell me, Lu. If it was Jongin, wouldn’t you—“

 

    “Keep Jongin out of your filthy mouth, Sehunnie,” Lu Han interrupted. “I don’t know who you think you are. It wouldn’t be Jongin because if Jongin were here, I wouldn’t be stuck with _you_ and your bitch of a girlfriend, forced to run away from my home and family. ”

 

    Sehun froze for half a second. “Bitch? No one asked you to run away.”

 

    “You wanted me standing at the altar alone.”

 

    “Lu—“

 

    “Pick, Sehunnie. Use your filthy fucking mouth. Joohyun or yourself.”

 

    Sehun was stunned into a disquieting quiet. Lu Han didn’t want to calm down, not now, when he’d finally raised his voice.

 

    “Why are you so fucking soft?” Lu Han continued. “Why are you such a prick? Why do you let her run you down over and over? She calls you a coward and you take it. She threatens you and you take it.”

 

    “I’m sorry,” Sehun said. 

 

    “Why are you sorry? Why are you sorry? Why are you sorry to me? I forgive you. I don’t care what you do.”

 

    “It wasn’t always like this. She changed when her mom died. She started taking it all out on me. I take it because I love her. I’ve been with her for four years and two of them held onto the Joohyun I miss. I take it because I want my Joohyun back.”

 

    Death altered people— it twisted them, morphed them, until they couldn’t recognize who they’d been before. It left gaping holes that were forcibly filled with things half-reasonable, half-needed, and half-wrong. Death stole much more than its victim. 

 

    Lu Han couldn’t bear to tell Sehun that Joohyun would never be his Joohyun because Lu Han had never again met himself after burying his own love in the ground.

 

    Since Lu Han’s heart was too afraid to lose his Sehun-friend, Sehun-stranger, Sehun-almost-husband too, he simply nodded and said, “I understand.”

 

—

 

    Melancholy was in the sea and sand. Lu Han stepped into it and it welcomed him. The water was surprisingly warm for April.

 

    Sehun gazed as his knees drowned in sand and the tides got higher and rougher. He was being swallowed by the earth. He gestured for Sehun to join him but Sehun shook his head no and picked up Lu Han’s book, pretending to read. 

 

    Lu Han could see Sehun’s eyes still fixed upon him. 

 

—

 

    “We watched the sunset all the time,” Sehun told him. “I liked the purple and pink ones.”

 

    “Very manly.”

 

    Sehun elbowed him. 

 

    “I don’t like sunsets. They depress me. I hate saying goodbye.”

 

    “I’m here.”

 

—

 

    “Isn’t it funny that we stare at these things, like they matter, when what really matters is what we think when we see them? Are you thinking about the photons and wavelengths and radiations? Are you thinking about the sun exploding in five billion years? Are you thinking about the hormones its sight produces within you?”

 

    “I’m thinking about Joohyun.”

 

    “I’m thinking you should stop.”

 

    “Are you trying to keep me for yourself, Lu?”

 

    Lu Han blew him a kiss.  

 

•

 

    Lu Han fell asleep, knees pulled against his chin, blonde hair dripping sea salt onto the car seat, and Sehun decided two things.

 

    One, Lu Han was going to contract pneumonia.

 

    Two, he was going to take his chance and not go back. He loved Joohyun and he thought she loved him too. That was what he wanted to believe. For once, it was in her hands.

 

    Besides, who else was going to jack up the car’s heat and drape his jacket over a sleeping Lu Han?

 

—

 

    He drove around in circles. 

 

    He didn’t know if people were supposed to camp out in their cars during road trips. That would probably add to the masculinity of it— the road trips— but he realized his neck would cramp and his mouth would taste nasty when he woke up and there wouldn’t be any breakfast served to him. 

 

    Five-star hotel it was.

 

    “Wake up.”

 

    Lu Han tossed his hair back, sending droplets of water to latch themselves Sehun’s arm  and clothes and the headrest behind him.

 

    “Can you not? This is leather.”

 

    Lu Han wiped the leather with his hand and then rubbed his palms against his pants. “Where are we?”

 

    “Hotel. Get out of the car.”

 

    “So pushy.” 

 

    Sehun led him into the lobby.

 

    “We’re saving money,” he said. 

 

    “One bed?” Lu Han asked, surprise springing in his voice.

 

    “No,” Sehun shoved him, “one _room_.”

 

    Lu Han nodded. And then he sneezed.

 

—

 

    “Are you watching porn?” Lu Han’s fluffy head peeked out from under his comforter. 

 

    “Go back to sleep.”

 

    “Why are you watching porn?”

 

    “I’m bored. Go to sleep.”

 

    “Let’s watch something _fun_.”

 

    “So gay porn,” Sehun drawled. 

 

    Lu Han disappeared in the sheets again.

 

—

 

    Lu Han was a messy sleeper. 

 

    At twenty he slept with the feverishness of a restless child, thrashing and kicking and Sehun would have hated to share a bed with him.

 

    He’d gone to sleep on the left side of the bed but now he was on the right, head practically hanging off the mattress. Sehun didn’t understand.

 

    There were no noises this time though.

 

    Except then Lu Han said _Sehunnie_. It was barely more than a whisper— almost a whimper, really— but Lu Han’s body had stilled and so had Sehun’s. Lu Han said _Sehunnie_ and somehow Sehun thought about responding. 

 

 _Yes, Lu Han? What is it, Lu? Hannie? Do you need me? Do you_ want _me?_

 

Sehun sealed his lips and his ears, turned over in bed, said, “Goodnight, man,” and went to sleep.

 

•

 

    There was a difference, Lu Han was sure, between standing sedentarily, and standing forcefully, against the wind and all other odds. 

 

    He stood against the wind, waiting for Sehun to find his car and bring it round. It made him shiver all the more. He was fighting every molecule and atom of air there was to stay upright, to exist. 

 

    Sehun pulled up, all white teeth and disarming smile. “Hi.”

 

    Lu Han climbed in. “Where are we going today?”

 

    “Where _are_ we going today, boss?”

 

    “The mountains.”

 

—

    

    “You’re making me hike?”

 

    “Don’t you need to work out? It’s been a week and all you do is eat hamburgers.”

 

    “Damn. You’re right. I can’t lose my guns.” Sehun flexed, hands still on the wheel. “Kiss them.”

 

    Lu Han smiled softly. “Really?”

 

    “Don’t be _gay_.”

 

—

 

    “I’m kidding. We’re not hiking. There’s a road up. Unless you want me to drive. You can hike.”

 

    Sehun patted his tummy. “I’m good.”

 

—

 

    Lu Han was nervous during the incline. He held anything his fingers could grasp as tightly as he could. This was Sehun’s arm too. 

    

    “I’m afraid of heights,” he confessed. 

 

    Sehun tried shaking him off. “So why, why would you ask to come here?”

 

    “I’m trying to face my fears. Isn’t this about facing fears? Being so far away from home, being so far away from solid ground.”

 

    “Digging your fingernails into me. Are you facing that fear too?”

 

    “Sorry.” Lu Han unlatched himself. 

 

    “And you wanted to _drive._ ”

 

—

 

    “Do you want me to turn around?”

 

    “You can’t.”

 

    “Exactly. So relax. Trust me.”

    

    “Trust you?” Lu Han mused quietly. 

 

    “Trust me. Would I let you fall?”

 

    “Trust you.”

 

—

 

    “Would I let you fall?”

 

    “Maybe,” Lu Han gulped. Maybe if Sehun suddenly felt an itch to push him off, to watch his flailing limbs grow smaller and smaller until he was nothing but a distant dot. 

 

    Sehun frowned. “Did I let you stand out in the rain? Did I let you catch a cold? Did I ever  even let you go hungry? Would I let you fall?”

 

    Lu Han shook his head no, and then let it loll down onto Sehun’s shoulder.

 

—

 

    “You can see the entire country from up here,” Sehun said, turning to smile at him.

 

    Lu Han could see his entire face, basked in sunlight.

 

—

 

    “Trust me,” Sehun insisted, leading him over the rocks. “Trust me, trust me.”

 

    “Don’t let me slip.”

 

    “It’s about getting over your fears, isn’t it? It’s about being different. So be different. I’ll be different too. You can believe in me.”

 

    “Wow, Sehunnie,” Lu Han said. “You can be so cheesy when you want.”

 

    “I would punch you if it wasn’t gonna send you into the open air.”

 

    Lu Han’s death grip became deadlier.

 

—

 

    Lu Han was brave. That’s what he told himself, letting go of Sehun and walking on his own towards their car. 

 

     _Don’t look down_.

 

    He looked down. 

 

    His heart stopped beating. The ground underneath was so _far away_ , so far away and it began moving away from him until he was standing at the edge of infinity’s cliff, breath scarce and feet unbalanced. He clutched at himself and the world shifted, turning too many degrees to the right and then to the left. 

 

    Then someone pulled him back, saying _Lu Han_ in a harsh way, and making him feel warm. Warm because he was being hugged.

 

    “If I’m ever going to die,” Lu Han whispered. “Make sure it’s not like this.”

 

    “Why would you die?” He could feel Sehun’s voice in his throat. “Why are you so thin?”

 

    Lu Han craned his neck to look back, but Sehun slapped his cheeks lightly. “Look at me. I’m handsome.”

 

    “Are you?” Lu Han smiled, staring up at him. “You are.”

 

    “So are you, Lu. You’re very handsome.”

 

    “Thank you.” 

 

—

 

    In the town at the bottom with a downtown in a classical lazy-summer, iced-tea, main-street way, Lu Han was at home, absorbing the sun like a flower. 

 

    “Peonies,” he said. “Do you know why I picked them?”

 

    “Because penis?”

 

    Lu Han hid his smile behind a glass of lemonade. “They mean shameful indignation.”

 

    ”Shameful indignation?”

 

    “Sehunnie, shamefully indignant of me.”

 

    He could feel Sehun’s embarrassment floating off of his six feet in waves of wanting to hide and wanting to lash out.

 

    “It’s okay,” Lu Han said. “I was shamefully indignant of you too, for Jonginnie.”

 

    For Jonginnie, six feet under, and for himself, who couldn’t have mustered the courage to ever say _no_.

 

    For Jonginnie, gone Jonginnie, and for himself, who couldn’t sleep a night without being Jongin’s again, smiles in his eyes and never in goodbyes. 

    

    Sehun smiled at him, warm and shy. “I hate penises.”

 

—

 

    “Do you grow flowers?”

 

    “They grow, like children. You can neglect a child or you can nurture him. But children will grow either way. Flowers die.”

 

    “Humans die too. Just three minutes without air, three days without water, three weeks without food.”

 

    “Three years without anyone to be with,” Lu Han chimed in. “Except I’m not dead yet.”

 

    “Can I hook you up?” Sehun asked, suddenly earnest, reaching across to tap his palm. “I know people.”

 

    “I know people too, Sehunnie.” He closed his fist around Sehun’s finger and tugged on it. “Such long fingers.”

 

    “You know what they say about long fingers—“

 

    “I don’t like people, Sehunnie. I don’t like the people you know.”

 

    Sehun pulled his hand away and Lu Han felt he had offended him, but then Sehun frowned thoughtfully and said, “Me neither.”

 

•

 

    Sehun was tempted to call Joohyun at a pay-phone, but Lu Han pulled him into a hat store.

 

    It was all it took to forget her. A store for hats. Guilty, guilty Sehun.

 

    Lu Han was distracting, that was what, with his sparkly eyes and magnetic words. They were alluring to Sehun, who’d grown fond of listening to him talk. He spoke too little or too beautifully.

 

—

 

    Lu Han bought a snapback. A snapback over the tufts of his yellow hair and loose hoodie. Sehun pulled the hood over Lu Han’s head. 

 

    “A real thug.”

 

    “What about you?”

 

    “We’ll be matching,” Sehun said. “I’ll get the same one.”

 

    Lu Han smiled at him like his mouth was nothing but honey, sweet and easy. For a moment, Sehun envisioned himself tasting to find out for himself, but that thought was thrown back into the same abyss that held Sehun’s thoughts of burps and dick jokes.

 

    He focused on the moving sun instead, and how it was Lu Han’s eyes that really filtered into shades of molten honey, flecked with black. They shifted over to him.

 

    “I thought running away would be darker than this,” Lu Han murmured. “I thought it would be scarier.”

 

    “I did too.” Sehun had thought it a time awash of loneliness and fear. It had turned to something else.

 

    Lu Han looked away again. “I wonder if they’re looking for me. I’ve never done anything like this before. What if they think I’m dead?”

 

    “You’re getting your work done aren’t you? On that laptop.”

 

    “Oh yeah.” Lu Han perked up. “Yeah, they must know I need to be away.”

 

    “When do you want to go back?” Sehun asked, thinking of his girlfriend, maybe ex-girlfriend. 

 

    “When you do. But I’m happy here.”

 

    Sehun stowed Joohyun away too, in the abyss of Lu Han’s mouth and bad porn. He was happy too, doing the things that were supposed to mean nothing, but meant everything instead. 

 

    “Me too.”

 

—

 

    The place had no name to them, just as the one before barely did. Lu Han said, “I want to see a movie.”

 

    Sehun couldn’t object. 

 

    Lu Han said, “Popcorn.”

 

    Sehun couldn’t disagree.

 

    Lu Han said, “Candy.”     

 

    Sehun couldn’t believe it, that Lu Han could eat any more.

 

    “Now, move a seat over so I can have my stuff here.”

 

    Sehun wouldn’t do it. 

 

    “What do you mean?”

 

    “Move down a seat. I like reaching over with my left hand.”

 

    “Why?” Sehun planted himself right beside Lu Han, where he could feel the younger’s warmth in kinetic energy, potential energy, forever energy. “I’ll hold your stuff.”

 

    “Don’t eat it,” Lu Han warned. “Jonginnie never ate it.”

 

     _Jonginnie._

 

“I’m eating it.”

 

—

 

    Superhero movies were never Sehun’s thing. He didn’t think they were realistic. 

 

    “They’re not supposed to be,” Lu Han said. “Just like fairy tales.”

 

    “If they’re not realistic, then what’s the point?”

 

    “They’re realistic enough. That’s what keeps you hooked. Little girls love Cinderella because they see themselves in her shoes, in a universe close enough to dream about.”

 

    “I’ve never connected.”

 

    Lu Han tugged on Sehun’s hat playfully. “Maybe you’re just not human enough, Cinderella, or have a big enough chest.”

 

    Or maybe it was that he was too human, and he couldn’t hear past the cowardice he sometimes bore.

 

—

 

    The magic in reality was more potent, to Sehun. He found it in the midst of loud, senseless people and vacant streets. 

 

    There was airiness, a magic, to walking in the night, along the lanes of a loose, almost-empty city. The people passed were too sparse to be noticed and too often to matter. There was nothing on his back, nor in his hands, and he decided it was his freedom from the vices of fear, cowardice, and the clutches of death. 

 

    Lu Han grabbed his hand excitedly. “A creepy guy looked at me.”

 

     _Never mind._

 

—

 

    There was nothing wrong with sleeping in the car, Sehun said. Road trip. 

 

    Lu Han had too much sugar that day. He opened the overhead window and stuck his upper body out. 

 

    “Drive,” he prompted

 

    “You’re going to die.”

 

    Death was simultaneously the worst possible thing and the most casually extended hyperbole in the history of man. 

 

    “Drive,” he repeated. Sehun shifted the gears. He’d go slow.

 

    He drove in circles for a few minutes in a parking lot. “Now onto the road,” Lu Han exclaimed from somewhere above.

 

    Sehun tugged on his thigh. “We’re gonna get in trouble. I don’t want to go to jail.”

 

    Lu Han came back down. He sat on the junction between their seats, and wrapped his arms around Sehun. “Sehunnie.”

 

    “What?” Sehun spluttered. “What are you doing?”

 

    “Thank you. You give me reason.”

 

    He pressed a kiss to Sehun’s cheek and it burned there all night. 

 

—

    

    Lu Han slept like the dead and it was Sehun who dreamt.

 

    First two years ago, and he was a coward. 

 

    Five years ago, he wasn’t. 

 

    Five months past and he was.

 

    Five minutes back and five minutes forwards— he wasn’t, he wouldn’t be, he refused.

 

    Five seconds now, that he was awake, and four shallow breaths, three fingers to Lu Han’s face, two brushes against soft lips and one moment touching his own mouth.

 

—

 

    He dreamt awake, and wondered why he didn’t feel as crusty as he thought he would, spending the night in a car. 

 

    Would Lu Han be quiet or loud today? Would Joohyun be everything or nothing? Would Sehun be Lu Han’s or Joohyun’s today?

 

    Why would he be Lu Han’s?

 

     _Could you belong to friends,_ he thought, and it wasn’t a question. 

 

•

 

    Lu Han liked reading and if he were to be asked: _What’s your favorite book? Who’s your favorite author? What’s your favorite genre?_ , he'd say he didn’t know, he didn’t know, and he didn’t know. 

 

    “When you decide to read,” he’d say, “you choose to open yourself to any and every thing. Because if you only ever read mystery or romance, then what’s the point? You’re not growing.”

 

    That was what he told Sehun and Sehun frowned, thoughtful. He was smart, Lu Han thought. He just didn’t try except when it came to his expertise or being sneaky.

 

    Being sneaky, like when Lu Han caught him with a disposable cellphone.

 

    “What is with you and self-sabotage?”

 

    “I don’t know,” Sehun admitted guiltily. “I haven’t done anything.”

 

    Lu Han spent some moments in thought. “Keep it. I want one too. That way we’ll never lose each other.”

 

    “But—“ Sehun fidgeted in trouble. “How’ll I resist calling her?”

 

    Wasn’t that the whole point?

 

—

 

    Lu Han had nothing against Joohyun; he had everything against Sehun and Joohyun. Because Sehun was no fun with her around or in his mind. Lu Han had a list:

 

     _One. He didn’t tug at Lu Han’s collar and pout like a baby._

 

_Two. He slapped Lu Han on the back too much._

 

_Three. Lu Han got no hugs._

 

_Four. Sehun lost his smile._

 

And when Sehun smiled at him, Lu Han’s stomach turned to knots. 

 

    Did Sehun know the effect he had? Did Sehun know he was being gayer than gay, or at least that he was making Lu Han feel gay? So, so gay.

 

    But, like Sehun said, _no homo, bro_.

 

—

 

    Sehun seemed to have adopted and thus christened the words, _no homo,_ as his catchphrase, for whenever he got within a couple inches of Lu Han. 

 

    He bought Lu Han a snack: 

 

    “Thank you,” Lu Han said.

 

    “Yep. No homo.”

 

    He brought Lu Han breakfast in bed:

 

    “Oh, thank you,” Lu Han would say, rubbing his sleepy eyes. 

 

    “No problem and no homo.”

 

    He pulled Lu Han close, nuzzling his cheek and hair:

 

    Lu Han would grow unsteady, a little dizzy, and Sehun would let go of him, simply saying, “No homo, bro.”

 

    And then he stopped saying it. 

 

—

 

    Sehun called him from the other side of town. “Are you doing well?”

 

    “I’m doing just fine,” Lu Han responded. “How’s your side of town?”

 

    “Boring. Yours?”

    

    “Too many people. Let’s switch.”

 

    “Meet me in the middle,” Sehun said, “In front of the pizza shop.”

 

    “You read my mind. Are you reading my mind, Sehunnie? What am I thinking about right now?”

    

    “Lu Han, you’re _always_ hungry. You’re thinking about spending my money on three pies.”

 

    “Cheese.”

 

    Sehun hung up. He had an odd way of ending calls. There was never a goodbye— never so much as any warning.  But Lu Han found he didn’t mind. He rather hated saying goodbye.

 

    Sehun waved at him like they were meeting after three decades of forced separation. Well, not really. It didn’t look that way to other people because Sehun was too cool, but to Lu Han, it was everything. 

 

—

 

    Lu Han stuffed himself silly, and then melancholy overtook him, because he realized he felt good enough around Sehun to stretch onto his back, over Sehun’s legs, and trust Sehun with not dropping hot cheese onto his face. 

 

    Sehun’s hand found its way into Lu Han’s hair; thoughtless, meaningless habit, Lu Han supposed, but he couldn’t resist the throb that overtook his body. It was often crudity and plainness that had him in quick breaths— the thought of his hair being pulled, or his air being stolen in careless force— and it made him feel ashamed. 

    

    But Sehun didn’t tug, only rubbed his scalp softly, and Lu Han fell into a drowsy state, pressing his nose into Sehun’s stomach and breathing him in. When Sehun talked, he felt the words in mute vibrations. 

 

    He remembered being like this with Jongin, but always colder, because he was always more scared. Jongin was perfect now, when anything but martyring him would have planted a guilt into Lu Han like nothing else. Jongin wasn’t perfect then, and he scared Lu Han as much as he loved him.

 

    It was why Lu Han hated Joohyun and understood Joohyun. It was why he wanted to protect Sehun and let him go. 

 

    “Your hair’s grown longer already,” Sehun said. “In barely two weeks. Did you get it done for me?”

 

    Lu Han opened his eyes. “I knew you wouldn’t have cared. I wanted to feel different.”

 

    “I’ve only seen you in dark hair once. What do you look like?”

 

    “Older, I think. I have pictures.”

 

    “Can I see?”

 

    “When we go back.” 

 

    “Go back,” Sehun tested on his tongue. 

 

    Lu Han paused. “I’ll dye it tomorrow.”

 

—

 

    It was a lack of discretion, Lu Han figured, that allowed them to grow close. Without anyone watching, they weren’t so afraid to become friends. Sehun grew, or loosened, or was just himself, but it was driving Lu Han crazy. To have Sehun stand behind him, chest against his back, hands on his waist, breath against his neck, casually, like it was _nothing_ — it was making Lu Han crazy. All he’d have to do was lean back a little, turn so his ear was against Sehun’s mouth, and he’d lose it. 

 

     _He’s doing it on purpose._  

 

    Stupid, stupid Sehun. Sehun was testing him. Sehun knew he was gay. Sehun wanted to know if he could trust Lu Han not to be gay for _him_.

 

    So he always made sure to give nothing away when Sehun made his heart beat like crazy, and he made sure to never let it happen when they were in front of a mirror, because if nobody else, _God_ knew he wasn’t a girl, and what Sehun did to him was going to show.

 

—

 

    Once they stood in the bathroom and compared their heights. 

 

    “You’re so short,” Sehun teased. 

 

    “No. You’re only a centimeter taller.”

    

    “A centimeter?” Sehun scoffed. “More like ten.” And then he positioned himself behind Lu Han. “But this is where we’re really different.” He pulled Lu Han back, murmuring into his hair. “You’re small.” He could have enveloped Lu Han completely.

 

    Lu Han crossed his arms. Sehun dipped down until his mouth was against Lu Han’s neck. “I like that your hair’s not long. I can’t do this to Joohyun.”

 

    Lu Han didn’t know whether to blush or be irritated that Joohyun was brought up.

 

    He settled on, “Why me?” 

    

    “Why you what?” 

 

    “Why are you touching me?”

 

    “Touching you?”

 

    “Why touch _me_?”

 

    “Why touch you?” Sehun mused. “Why not touch you?”

 

    “Why your hands on _me_? All the time? Why kiss my neck? Why breathe in my ear? I can’t handle it. I don’t want to be tested. I fail.”

 

    “I fail too,” Sehun said, “to resist doing it.”

 

    “But you’re not gay.”

 

    “I’m not gay. And better a girl than you.”

 

    Lu Han hung his head.

 

•

 

    In excuse of his new phone, Sehun began to spend more time away from Lu Han, who he couldn’t keep hands off of and who he couldn’t bear to touch. Instead, he chose to run as far as he could, left or right, forwards or backwards, and wherever he ended up was where he’d spend the rest of his day. 

 

    The first day he did it, he ran west and stopped in front of a coffee shop. He bought four coffees: a cappuccino, a latte, a macchiato, and an espresso. The espresso was too bitter and strong for him to swallow down in whole, but it seemed to give him the energy to go back. 

 

    Lu Han was on their balcony, frowning down at something in his lap. Paper.

 

    “Sehunnie.”

 

    “I brought coffee.” 

 

    “Where have you been?”

 

    “You could have called me.”

 

    “It’s cold,” Lu Han said, about the coffee or himself, but he still drank it. 

 

—

 

    The second day, going east, he found what looked like an abandoned garden, and he knew that because it was an explosion of color, wild and teeming. He didn’t know what that penis-flower Lu Han liked looked like, but he figured blue was a good color. He liked blue. He picked two, three, seven, and tucked them into his pocket. 

 

    They were crushed by the time he got back, and he had an urge to cry. But Lu Han smiled like Sehun had grown them himself. He threaded their fingers together to kiss Sehun’s knuckles. 

 

    Sehun didn’t understand the show of tenderness, but he liked it. It was different.

 

—

    

    He wanted to save upwards for last, so the third day he went south. He was met with an endless trail of market— everything from boutiques to bakeries to a chocolate shop. 

 

    He bought six cupcakes and twelve truffles. 

 

    Chocolate tended to melt in the hands of the trouble, but Lu Han didn’t seem to mind. He dipped his finger into the box and sucked on it before offering a finger to Sehun. 

 

    To Sehun, it tasted good, and not because it was chocolate, but because it was chocolate on Lu Han’s finger— the one he’d stuck into his own mouth— and Sehun was terrible when it came to Lu Han. Terribly into everything Lu Han did. 

 

—

 

    The fourth day was his until he bumped into someone down the sidewalk and sent the person onto his back, along with a cellphone eerily similar to the one Sehun carried.

 

    Lu Han stared up at him, bewildered. “Sehunnie.”

 

    Sehun blinked twice. He was sure he’d left Lu Han asleep. But then again, Lu Han’s bed was always lumpy and confusing. “What are you doing out here?”

 

    “I wanted to take a walk.” He sat up, reaching for his phone. “I was going to call you. Where are you going?”

 

    “Will you get off the ground? I’m going for my run.”

 

    “You run all day, Sehunnie,” Lu Han complained. “We used to have so much fun.”

 

    “Then come with me.” 

 

    Usually he spent his time thinking and thinking, turning ideas over in his head— ideas about Joohyun and Joohyun and himself and sometimes Lu Han, who, if he stopped being a filthy liar, was always in his mind and was nothing less of every other thought. But you didn’t think of your friends that often. 

 

    That’s why Lu Han frightened him— for one, because Sehun was always frightened, and then because Sehun wasn’t gay.

 

—

 

    Lu Han panted behind him and Sehun wondered when he’d become such a loud person. When they’d first met, Lu Han wouldn’t so much as open his mouth. He murmured hello as though it was being forced out of him by Sehun. That had irritated Sehun. 

 

    Sehun had been so close to Joohyun then. Things that changed were terrifying.

 

—

 

    “Water,” Lu Han said, pointing to a carelessly tossed gas station. 

 

    “Let’s go a little while longer.” Sehun was not going to stop at a gas station of all places. He may as well have walked only twenty steps from the hotel lobby. “Just a little, Lu.”

 

    “I am dying.”

 

    “You’ll be stronger if you exercise.”

 

    “I’m strong enough,” Lu Han protested and then he wheezed. Sehun laughed. 

 

—

 

    Joohyun couldn’t have been married, right? He couldn’t imagine her being married— not even to himself. It _had_ to be an empty threat. He didn’t like worrying about it, because there was nothing he could do about it, really, unless he was willing to face the brunt of her anger and force.

 

—

 

    There was nothing up north— nothing, even though there had been so much expectation, so much hope, and so much everywhere else. Lu Han watched him with sad, puppy-dog eyes and Sehun couldn’t take it.

 

    “Water?”

 

    “Fine.” And Sehun collected the water that dripped onto Lu Han’s hands with the tips of his fingers and stuck the tips of his fingers into his mouth and pretending what he was tasting wasn’t just water’s water.

 

—

 

    Lu Han was crying, silently, but Sehun heard it, and didn’t bother knocking before entering the bathroom and gathering the younger in his arms and promising it was okay, even though he didn’t know if it was at all. 

 

—

 

    Lu Han revealed that he’d been making phone calls, and Sehun felt some brand of betrayed. Because his fingers had been hovering over the call button for days, and he hadn’t spoken to Joohyun even once. 

 

    But it was Baekhyun, Lu Han said. And his mother. Because he didn’t want to be dead and he didn’t want to be found. 

 

    He sagged against Sehun’s shoulder and Sehun gave him a secret kiss on the side of his head. Was a kiss still a kiss if the kissed didn’t know about it?

 

—

 

    When Lu Han leaned in close, he felt that buzzing. That buzzing he’d felt that day, when he’d seen Joohyun in his wedding hall, and she’d leaned in too close. It was hard to resist crushing his lips against Lu Han’s. 

 

    Lu Han seemed to notice, eyes raised to meet Sehun’s gaze in a feigned innocence, and doing nothing to move away. 

 

    It was Sehun who pushed him back. He got off his knees. He walked out of the bathroom. He passed onto the balcony, and he pulled out his tiny little flip phone, staring at it. Joohyun’s number was speed-dial in his contacts, though he didn’t need that. Her number was etched into his mind. He squeezed the device, wondering what, _what_ , what was wrong with him?

 

    He dropped it from thirteen stories.

—

 

    Lu Han handed him his own flip-phone. “Be careful,” he said. “Save my number.” He had his smartphone and he fiddled with it, eyelashes fluttering. 

 

    Sehun saved the number. There was no rhyme or reasoning in remembering it; there was no rhyme or reason in Lu Han or him or the fact that the world was turning.

 

—

 

    Lu Han was being quiet again. Quiet, quiet, quiet. 

 

    “Let’s go out,” Sehun said. No response. “Let’s leave here. I’m tired of here. We’ve been here too long. Let’s go away.”

 

    Lu Han nodded, beginning to gather his things. “I’m beginning to hate here too.”

 

—

 

    “I want to leave the country.”

 

    Lu Han blinked, slowly, like he needed to digest Sehun’s words. He swallowed. “Leave the country? And go where?”

 

    “Away.”

 

    Lu Han shifted and turned his head so Sehun couldn’t see his expression. “Away isn’t specific enough.”

 

    “You don’t have to come. I’ll go alone.”

 

    “You haven’t a phone nor decent money. You haven’t any reason nor direction.”

 

    “Come with me then. Take care of me.”

 

    Lu Han breathed laughter. “I thought it was you who took care of me.”

 

    “You take care of me too,” Sehun insisted, “and what would I do without my Lu? Who’s going to forgive me when I’m stupid like you do? Who’s going to be my friend like you are?” Lu Han’s frown melted until it was milk and honey.

 

    “You can use those words, can’t you, Sehunnie? You know how to use them.”

 

    Sehun was triumphant. “I’ve always loved France.”

 

—

 

    “Who’s going to treat me like you do?” Lu Han mused. “Who’s going to hold me at the edge of a cliff like you do? Who’s going to choke me like you do?”

 

    “ _Stop._ ”

 

    Lu Han laughed. “Where are we leaving your car?”

 

    “The airport, stupid.”

 

    “They’ll hold it for that long?”

 

    “How long are we going for, do you think?”

 

    “Forever,” Lu Han said. “Will they hold it forever?”

 

 


	6. half gay, twice the man

 

    Lu Han didn’t like heights, and he was getting into a plane that would rise thousands of feet off the ground. It was because he trusted Sehun. 

 

    He trusted that Sehun needed him. 

 

    “I’m going overseas for a while,” he told his mother. “Don’t worry about me.”

 

    “Are you alone?”

 

    “It’s okay.”

 

    Sehun ghosted somewhere behind him, kissing his head where he didn’t think Lu Han would feel it. Lu Han wasn’t about to burst his bubble. 

 

    “I’ll call you, okay?” He said his goodbyes.

 

    Sehun moved away from him, suddenly interested in coffee. Lu Han followed him. 

 

    “What’s your balance?”

 

    “What?”

 

    “In cash.”

 

    “Enough.” Sehun glared up at the selection of drinks. 

 

    “I’ll buy my own ticket. Let’s preserve.”

 

    “Fair enough.” Sehun moved away before pulling him close by back of his collar, his mouth against Lu Han’s ear. “I want to sit beside you though.”

 

    Lu Han choked on an almost inaudible noise, covering it up with coughs. “Tickets?”

 

    Sehun waved him off again. He was moody. 

 

    A twelve hour flight. Sehun let Lu Han grip his fingers nervously. 

 

    “Won’t I take care of you?” Lu Han squeezed his eyes shut and Sehun’s fingers touched his face. “If it counts for anything, Lu, I’m here.”

 

—

 

    It wasn’t too bad once they were up in the air. Except when there was turbulence. Lu Han frightened himself into sitting on Sehun’s lap, clutching at the lapels of his polo. 

 

    “You’re gonna rip my buttons open.” Sehun was watching a film, cradling him like the move was thoughtless. “Stop moving around so much.”

 

    Lu Han took a peek at the peak of a horror movie before hiding his face again. What he couldn’t see wouldn’t hurt him. 

 

    “Don’t worry. Plane crashes only happen like once a month.”

 

    That wasn’t any help. Lu Han tightened his grip. 

 

    “Here, why don’t you go to sleep?” Sehun tried removing Lu Han from his lap.  “The seat’s more comfortable than I am.”

 

    “No.” Lu Han stayed rooted to his spot. He wasn’t going anywhere.

 

    “Are you telling me you’ve never been on a plane before?”

 

    “I have.”

 

    “Do you do this to every one of your companions?”

 

    “No.” 

 

    Sehun sighed, but he didn’t push anymore. He pulled the plane’s measly blanket over them, patted Lu Han’s waist, and Lu Han closed his eyes. 

 

—

 

    He woke up with Sehun’s hand inside his shirt. 

 

    He blinked drowsily two, four times. Sehun’s hand was warm on his stomach, curling over his hip. Lu Han kept his breathing even, counting the degrees his skin heated itself in. 

 

    Sehun didn’t know he was awake until he slid a finger under Lu Han’s waistband and was received by a shuddering breath. 

 

    “Lu Han,” he said, pulling away deftly enough that Lu Han almost questioned what had just happened. “How long have you been awake?”

 

    “Why are you touching me?” Sehun didn’t answer and Lu Han reached for his hand, placing it back on his hip. “Don’t stop.”

 

    Sehun waxed shy along his spine and Lu Han closed his eyes again, understanding that the warm pressure came with a condition— a condition of his silence and unquestioning. Even when Sehun’s fingers reached his chest he kept quiet, just pressing himself harder into Sehun’s body. 

 

    But maybe he wasn’t as silent as he thought he was. 

 

    “Be quiet,” Sehun warned. “Why so much noise?”

 

    He didn’t stop though, moving more quickly and now Lu Han heard himself too. Pleading in soft cadence. 

 

    “More,” he wanted, and more was what Sehun gave, until something was present against the backs of his thighs.

 

    It was vulgar. So vulgar. He didn’t know how to stop needing.

 

    Sehun tipped his head back and kissed him and Lu Han knew why. They weren’t in Asia anymore; they weren’t home anymore; it didn’t matter what they did. 

 

    He pressed even harder into the man. 

 

—

 

    “It’s not gay if I’m not gay,” Sehun informed him. Lu Han nodded at him before nodding off. Three years of abstinence had worn him needy and now exhausted. And they hadn’t even done anything remotely effective. That would have been hard. 

 

    Hard. 

 

    He adjusted his seat until he was reclining and then turned away so he wouldn’t have to see Sehun’s face. He was too pretty. Lu Han was too weak. 

 

    Blanket over head, sleep forgotten, eyes turned up, he could see Sehun’s silhouette bobbing through darkness. What was Baekhyun going to think?

 

    What would Jongin think?

 

    Even death suffered in the name of time. Its shadows lingered like the haunting of ghosts, but the emotions Lu Han had swore he’d never let go of had faded. He hadn’t forgotten them, the things he swore he’d never forget, but suddenly it seemed possible to live a double life. One of grieving, and one of living. 

 

    He reached out, arm breaking from the warmth of his covers, and patted Sehun’s hair. 

 

    His fingers were taken and placed against Sehun’s mouth, which murmured his name.

 

     _Not gay my ass,_ Lu Han thought.

 

•

 

     _Not gay, not gay, not gay_ , Sehun told himself. _Just sex deprived and love deprived and privileged with Lu Han._

 

    Lu Han’s pretty face and pretty hands and pretty smile.

 

    Prettier than Joohyun? No.

 

    Maybe. 

 

    He was sex deprived. Parisian girls were supposed to be cute. 

 

    Cuter than Lu Han? Maybe.

 

    No. 

 

    Oh Sehun, helplessly hopeless.

 

—

 

    “Sparkling or clear? Well-done or rare?”

 

    “Hmm…” Lu Han tapped his chin, like it all required an encyclopedia of thought. “Let’s go with medium-rare, and sparkling, please.”

 

    He turned back to Sehun, smiling brightly. “I love first class. But I like private jets better. We should have taken mine.”

 

    “More privacy,” Sehun agreed. Lu Han swallowed. Sehun had to kiss him again. 

 

    Just once, just twice, just until the stewardess came back.

 

    They jumped apart like elementary kids caught scandalously selling candy in the back of the playground. 

 

    She wouldn’t look at them.

 

    Lu Han didn’t seem to notice, thanking her profusely. 

 

    She’d look at them if Sehun was kissing Joohyun, wouldn’t she?

 

    There was his seed of doubt.

 

—

 

    They played a movie together and forgot it together.

 

    Sehun didn’t know where he stood, but he knew that Lu Han was the most beautiful person he’d ever seen. 

 

—

 

    Planes made limbs sore and creaky. Unwilling. Even in first class. 

 

    Sehun stretched and Lu Han hugged his waist. Sehun planted a kiss on his head. He was giving too many away. But it was France they were going to, not home, and in France Sehun wasn’t Sehun. He was himself. 

 

    And when they got to Paris, when they got to their hotel, Sehun was going to do things that he’d never be able to turn from. 

 

    Like kissing Lu Han’s tummy. Like making Lu Han call his name until his throat was raw. 

 

    He tried cleansing his mind in remembrance of his first time with Joohyun. 

 

    It had been an afternoon of escape, and the pair of them had found their way into Sehun’s bedroom. Sehun had started slow, drawing inspiration from the every curve on her. 

 

    It had been nice, back then. Everything had been nice. He hadn’t seen his future because he didn’t need to and not because his eyes were murky. Joohyun was sweet, yet still bold.

 

    He wondered what Lu Han would be like, and then he took the thought back. Because what straight man plans how he’s going to bed his best friend?

 

—

 

    He probably wasn’t that straight, he figured. Because if he _was_ that straight, he’d have refocused on the sparse women in his current lifestyle. The stewardess, the front desk girl at the hotel, the street-full of women. It wouldn’t have been hard. 

 

    It wouldn’t have been hard; he was just gay. 

 

—

 

    He was _not_ gay. That was Lu Han’s thing. Being smart was Lu Han’s thing too, and being strange. Flowers were Lu Han’s thing— the baby blues and farouche pinks and peonies which were really peonies now because Sehun was getting tired of making dick jokes.

 

    Sehun’s thing was being scared; his thing was going to be being kicked off Joohyun’s bed. Would he find Lu Han’s instead?

 

    Where had the love gone? 

 

    He felt it was with the phone he’d dropped from fourteen stories, with all the things he’d carried— the dirty, fiddling things he’d carried until they’d grown heavy. So heavy he’d let it go too. 

 

    He’d dropped his heavy, sorry, bleeding love.

 

    It was the petty things that kept people together. The petty things like jealousy and anger— an argument left in half must be finished. Jealousy must be planted and bloomed. It was the need to slam things shut. And then when all that pettiness dissipated, there was nothing left at all.

 

•

 

    Lu Han flipped to the flight tracker channel on his television, staring mesmerized at the dotted lines. Six more hours in air. He was actually in the air. Granted, it made him nauseous, but he was actually flying. 

 

    “Are you okay?” Sehun asked. “You’re crushing my hand.”

 

    “Sorry.”

 

    “Let me get you something to drink,” Sehun said, and then carelessly flicked the button above him for a flight attendant. 

 

    She appeared and Sehun let go of his hand. “Juice?”

 

    “Water,” Lu Han smiled, pulling Sehun’s fingers to his cheek. “Thank you.” 

 

    When she left, Sehun’s thumb hovered over his bottom lip, which was swollen and red. “Don’t make it so obvious.”

 

    “What? That was you. This is you, mister _it’s-not-gay-if-I’m-not-gay_.”

 

    Sehun rolled his eyes and then his face softened.

 

    “It’s hard to wait.”

 

    Something swelled in Lu Han’s stomach. “I know.”

 

    “I want to be in Paris already.”

 

    “I know.”

 

    Sehun shifted to face him. “Double room? Double rooms? Double bed, Lu?” He was smiling like he’d held his words a wanting secret for years. 

 

    “King,” Lu Han corrected and he was rewarded with a peck to his lips which waxed until he could barely breathe. “Sehunnie.”

 

    “Lu-Hannie.”

 

    “I like that.” Lu Han was presented with his water, which he sipped and it was cold. It was cold enough to soothe the burn of his cheeks. Sehun watched him curiously before turning away. 

 

—

 

    French air tasted like something different. Lu Han would say it tasted like croissants, but that was a stupidly stereotyped thing to say.

 

    “It tastes like croissants,” Sehun said. “The air, I mean.”

 

    Lu Han looped his arm through Sehun’s, leading him towards customs and decided it tasted fresh, like new beginnings. 

 

    “What is your purpose here?” the customs worker asked in thick English. Sehun cleared his throat before answering with, “Just a short vacation.”

 

    It was a requirement, in Lu Han’s days, to learn English, as the son of a mogul and as someone living in the twenty-first century. Sehun spoke more confidently than he would have and that was probably because he wasn’t scared of stepping onto a plane.

 

    Lu Han wanted to challenge why more people wouldn’t just learn Chinese or Spanish or even French. But the British Empire had left its impermeable mark and now Lu Han had to know the difference between “you’re” and “your”, “their” and “there” and “they’re”, and what exactly a hot dog was. It wasn’t a fried Pomeranian. And _no_ , Lu Han wouldn’t know. 

 

    His background had forced him into trilingualism. He’d grown with Chinese and Korean and then English. If only his parents hadn’t decided on packing their bags and moving to Korea. 

 

    Then he probably wouldn’t have known Sehun. Or Jongin. 

 

    “You speak Chinese, right?”

 

    “Yeah.” Lu Han was shy in Chinese. More shy. 

 

    “Will you teach me the bad words?” Sehun asked like he was twelve. 

 

    “Convert your cash.”

 

    “Teach me how to talk dirty.”

 

    Lu Han moaned into the back of his shoulder. “Convert your cash. Some of it.”

 

    “I’m doing it.”

 

    “Hurry, hurry.” 

 

    Sehun kissed him in the taxi, whose driver looked at them in choppy, agitated moments. He kissed Lu Han silly in the hotel’s elevator, pleased with the non-placement of camera. 

 

    Lu Han took a moment to revel in the golden expanse of the suite. He’d booked a penthouse suite, but he hadn’t expected it to feel as cozy as it did. Usually penthouse implied spacious, but everything in Paris was smaller. It made getting to bed easier. 

 

    Sehun dropped their bags immediately, and he pulled up Lu Han’s chin. 

 

    “You wanna do this?”

 

    “Do you?”

 

    “I’m asking you.”

 

    “I was never the one with issues, Sehunnie. That was you. Do you want to break the barrier? Do you want to go where you can’t turn back from? Because from now forwards, you’ll always be at least half gay.”

 

    “Half gay,” Sehun grinned. “That’s a funny way to put it. Better half than full, yeah? Better than gay. Better than straight. I’ll be a double man. Twice the man.”

 

    “And are you sure you won’t be half?”

 

    “You tell me. Do you feel half?”

 

    “No. I feel whole. Wholly into you.”

 

    “Wholly and fully,” Sehun said before sitting him down on the edge of the bed and getting onto his knees. “Tell me, Lu. Do you like vanilla?”

 

    “Sure,” Lu Han said, half believing it. Because he wanted the first and maybe only time to be nice. He wanted it warm and doting. He wanted to pretend he was Sehun’s Joohyun, Jongin’s Lu Han, or even Sehun’s Lu Han. 

 

    “Because I feel like,” Sehun continued. “It’s just a hunch, but I feel like you like a lot of things.”

 

    Lu Han was growing flustered. “Sehunnie. Are you going to do anything or not?”

 

    Sehun placed his hands onto Lu Han’s shoulders, serious. “Do I look like I’ve ever fucked a guy before?”

 

    “I’ll guide you,” Lu Han said, taking Sehun’s hands from where they rested and bringing them to his face. “I’ll help you. But you have to mean it.”

 

    “I mean it.” Sehun pressed his thumb against Lu Han’s bottom lip. “I can kiss you and I can touch you but I don’t know anything else. I mean— I know it, but do I really?” 

 

    “Shut up now.” 

 

    Lu Han leaned down and kissed him, softly. More softly than he’d been kissing Sehun before. There were butterflies inside of him, and he liked them. He liked the fluttering pressure. Sehun left his mouth to nuzzle his neck and Lu Han realized he still liked that. It hadn’t been just Jongin. He liked it from Sehun too. He held his head back as Sehun began to suck. 

 

    He ended up leaning back on his elbows, and then nothing at all. Sehun sat over him, mouth a little quirked. 

 

    “Has anyone ever told you you’re pretty?”

 

    “You haven’t. Are you going to?”

 

    “You’re pretty, Lu-Hannie. Really, really pretty. Pretty enough that I think being half gay is worth it.”

 

    Sehun’s fingers were on his tummy, spelling something. Lu Han would have tried to guess what but he couldn’t focus long enough. Sehun leaned down to kiss right under his bellybutton and Lu Han moaned softly. Sehun moved upwards until he was right at Lu Han’s collar, right at Lu Han’s chest, right where Lu Han was forced to begin to arch up into him because he needed more. 

 

    “Take off your stupid shirt,” Lu Han said, tugging at the sleeves of Sehun’s shirt. “Take off my stupid shirt too. Take off my pants.”

 

    His pants were off and he saw Sehun— really saw Sehun, in the beauty of a lover.

 

    “Sehunnie,” he said. “You’re pretty too.”

 

    “I know. Tell me what feels good.”

 

—

 

    Sehun didn’t need the guidance Lu Han had thought he’d need. 

 

    “Maybe I’ve seen porn,” Sehun admitted, holding Lu Han’s knees apart. “Several times. Out of curiosity, though. Don’t get any ideas.”

 

    “Maybe I’m wound too tight,” Lu Han added in, almost tearfully. “Years of chastity does that to you.”

 

    “You’re basically a virgin.” Sehun raised his eyebrows. 

 

    “You don’t need to smile like that.”

 

—

 

    Sehun was long in a lot of places. Long feet and long fingers. Tall. Long tongue. Long legs, and his hair was beginning to grow long too, over his eyes and the nape of his neck. He spoke long sentences now too, running them through three of Lu Han’s name, and four of the only curse word he seemed to remember. 

 

    But he was big as well and Lu Han felt it best when Sehun attempted to join him in the way of irreversible intimacy. The gay way. 

 

    “Lube?” Lu Han asked, because he was hissing. “In my bag.”

 

    Sehun jerked against him. “You’re carrying lube? Did you expect to get laid?”

 

    ”Not by you,” Lu Han said, and earned a frustrated little sound against his ear before Sehun rose off him and stalked into the living room. 

 

    Then Lu Han was alone and naked, sprawled face-down in silken sheets and his own puddle of tears. 

 

     _Cheater,_ he thought. _Cheater, cheater, cheater. Now’s the time to back out. Tell him._

 

    Sehun came back and kissed the crown of his head and the crook of his neck and whispered, “I found it,” and poked him in a few good places and Lu Han was absolute mush again. 

 

     _Not cheater_ , he insisted. _Not when it’s Sehun._

 

_—_

 

He hadn’t expected it to be so warm. They were only friends, after all, or you could even call them almost-husbands. But they were not lovers in the least. 

 

    Or were they? Lu Han’s every kiss was tinged with adoration. He thread his fingers through Sehun’s hair like he was precious, because he was precious. Sehunnie was precious. Was he going to be responsible for the breaking of Sehun?

 

    “Are you okay?” Sehun asked, like it was Lu Han’s identity on the line. “I know it’s been too long. But don’t think about anyone else. Think about me.”

 

    Lu Han smiled at him. “I can feel your heart beat.”

 

    Sehun rocked him gently. “Is it scary to feel? Is it beating too fast?”

 

    “It’s beating fast for me,” Lu Han responded, short of breath. “So no. I want more.”

 

    Was he going to be responsible for the breaking of Sehun?

 

•

 

    Sehun wasn’t supposed to enjoy it as much as he did. He was supposed to be doing away with excess energy and lust. 

 

    He wasn’t supposed to cherish it and just kiss Lu Han for ten whole minutes. 

 

    Sehun was a cheater. 

 

    “It’s not cheating,” he thought out loud. “When you’re doing it with your husband.”

 

    “We never got married.” Lu Han flung his arms around Sehun’s neck, teasing his lips over the tips of Sehun’s ears. “You ran away.”

 

    “You ran away from _me_ ,” Sehun said like he was realizing it for the first time again, so much was his disbelief. “Me.”

 

    Lu Han’s breath hitched before he spoke. “I wouldn’t again.”

    Sehun wouldn’t have either. 

 

    He caught himself. 

 

    “You wouldn’t?”

 

    “No,” Lu Han admitted, in half a groan. “Faster, Sehunnie? Only if you go faster.”

 

—

 

    Sehun discovered he’d a penchant for his name on Lu Han’s mouth. It wasn’t how everyone else said his name. It was softer. It was eternal. 

 

    “You say my name so nice,” Lu Han breathed out, like he was reading Sehun’s mind. “Say it more.”

 

—

 

    When he did it with Joohyun, things were more lewd. He finished faster. 

 

    Lu Han strung him out for way too long. He hated it. He hated it because he actually really liked it. He hated when he adored Lu Han. He wasn’t supposed to. 

 

—

 

    He was almost relieved when it was over. No, he _was_ relieved. He could breathe again. 

 

    He found a leisurely stroke of Lu Han’s hair and they talked, drifting in and out of sleep. 

 

    Lu Han yawned, knocking his nose drowsily on Sehun’s chest. “What’re we doing tomorrow?”

 

    Sehun rustled and found the purple sky settling hazily around them. “This.”

    

—

 

    “We can see the Seine.”

 

    “That river?”

 

    “Let’s rent out a houseboat.”

 

    “We can wreck the water.”

 

    Sehun expected a punch but Lu Han only smiled sweetly. “Don’t drown anyone.”

 

    No, Sehun was really going to make sure the whole river felt how much he adored Lu, Lu, Lu Han.

 

—

 

    

    He was ravenous in the morning.

 

    At least room service delivered quickly. Sehun uttered a practiced “thank you,” before digging his fork into the first thing it touched. Lu Han sat across from him, toes clutched to Sehun’s knee. 

 

    “I always think,” he said, through a bite of bread, “that our country becoming to modern, so in mock of the West, would replace chopsticks with what’s easier. Forks.” He waved his around in Sehun’s face. 

 

    “Tradition,” Sehun grumbled into his bowl. He was too hungry for banter. “Tradition is precious.”

 

    “Which is why, without real reason, it’s so hard to be accepting of people who aren’t straight. Simple stubbornness.” Lu Han held the skewers of his utensil to his chin, tapping thoughtfully. “But the rich can do anything.”

 

    Sehun was too absorbed in the chocolate croissant to do anything but nod.

 

    “Eat, Lu,” he said. “Aren’t you hungry? Did I do it all wrong last night?”

 

    “I am.” Lu Han sucked on the tip of a strawberry. Sehun averted his gaze. Lu Han smiled and then he frowned. “Now I’ve lost my train of thought.”

 

    “I think we’re protected,” Sehun contributed generously. “In places like China and where we live, you only hear of the obscure or the ultra-glamorous. What’s funny is that we can’t even produce an heir.”

 

    “Or heiress. But you’re right. Not naturally. Do you think your father thought about artificial production?”

 

    Sehun thought of his father, always three steps ahead, always calculating, never surprised. He thought of how surprised his father probably was now, son missing and unmarried and unafraid. Sehun found he didn’t care, and in fact, he felt that it was better his father was disappointed than to have the satisfaction of knowing he’d crushed Sehun— again.

 

    “Sehunnie?”

 

    “Oh,” Sehun knocked his head up. “Yeah, maybe.”

 

    “I always thought it was cute,” Lu Han mused. “Granted you do it safely.”

 

    “Well,” Sehun sighed, “we’re rich. Everything’s safe for us until it’s not.”

—

 

    “Don’t give me that saving water line,” Lu Han admonished. “We’re in a hotel. It really doesn’t matter.”

 

    “Fine. Let me in so I can wash your hair.”

 

    “Why? What’s in it for you?”

 

    “Wash mine too.”

 

    “Wash your own,” Lu Han whined. “My arms hurt enough already.”

    

    “See?”

 

    Sehun welcomed himself into the shower and positioned himself behind Lu Han, arms around the younger’s waist, and rocked them both on his feet. “We’ll exchange.”

 

    Lu Han turned to him. “Exchange what?” he asked, but Sehun was already on his knees. 

 

    “Wash my hair,” Sehun directed. 

 

    He liked Lu Han’s fingers in his hair, curling brashly and without reserve. He liked how Lu Han’s voice echoed in the shower chamber so it was Sehun’s own name that surrounded him. He liked _Sehunnie_ even though nobody else ever called him that, and he liked it better than _Sehun_ , even though it was childish and it was from the times when he could barely feel himself as anything more than an existential, lost, sad child. 

 

    Sehun did it the way he’d want it done to him. 

 

    Lu Han did it the way he’d known how to do it all along, even though he struggled more because his mouth was petite and unrelenting. He worked from experience; the experience, which bugged Sehun more than it was supposed to. Irritation channeled itself into his hands and he yanked.

 

    He didn’t mean to, and he was afraid that it hurt, but Lu Han did nothing but keen into his hand. 

 

    Sehun went along with it. Lu Han made him short of breath. He made something build in Sehun’s stomach. Lu Han was so little and so pure and yet Sehun wanted to break him in the best ways. He had a feeling Lu Han would let him. 

 

—

 

    Lu Han was one of those people Sehun was deathly afraid of. Not because he was scary, but because of the opposite. Because he was so un-scary. Because he was too good for anybody else, and yet he wouldn’t realize that. 

 

    Sehun was scared of the day Lu Han would realize it and realize that Sehun wasn’t worth shit, that the entire world wasn’t worth shit, and that he was tired. Sehun didn’t know what would happen if Lu Han was really, truly tired.

 

    He was so scary, so scary, because Sehun would rather lose his own happiness than see Lu Han let go of his. 

 

    That wasn’t because he loved Lu Han. No, it was just because he could finally see past the tip of his nose. And it was that Lu Han talked now. He smiled like Sehun was precious, like everything was precious. It was so, so wrong.

 

—

 

    “We were supposed to be all touristy today,” Lu Han murmured into the pillow. “I had a list.”

 

    “I have a list too.” Sehun had a naughty list.

 

    “You’re smiling that smile again. Stop.”

 

—

 

    “What’s on your list anyways?”

 

    “It’s a secret.”

 

    Lu Han squinted and exhaled.

 

    “What’s on yours?” Sehun asked. 

 

    Lu Han stretched, arm hitting Sehun in the face. “Gardens.”

 

—

 

    “What’s with you and flowers anyways?”

 

    “It’s a secret.”

 

    “Well it’s gay.” 

 

    “You think I’m gay? Should’ve met Jongin. It’s his fault I garden. He forced me to start and I hated it. I hated it. I was so impatient. But when he went and died, I had nothing else left.”

 

    Sehun ruminated. What did he have? Without Joohyun and his status, what?

 

    What he had left was crying softly onto his shoulder, repeating _“went and died”_ to himself over and over. 

 

    Sehun couldn’t catch his breath.

 

— 

 

    He pinned Lu Han down and nipped at his cheeks. “Stop crying. I’ll tell you what’s on my list.”

 

    Lu Han sniffled and closed his eyes one last time so tears streamed down the side of his face. They were salted bitterly.

 

    “First a matinee,” Sehun said, “that you won’t watch. I won’t watch it either.”

 

    “Why?”

 

    “I also have blindfolds on the list. I haven’t brought a tie with me. We’ll make do.”

 

    Lu Han’s mouth parted, and Sehun took opportunity. 

 

    “Handcuffs,” he said between pecks. “Or I can just use the ties.

 

    “And what’re those things you people use? The things that keep you from coming. The rings.”

 

    Lu Han groaned before covering his eyes and saying, “Sehunnie, stop watching so much gay porn.”

 

—

 

    It wasn’t as weird to Sehun as he’d thought it’d be. Doing things with Lu Han— to Lu Han. He just did it like he’d want his own done. And he couldn’t believe he actually liked it. He couldn’t imagine things in any other fashion.

 

    There were moments in his life when he’d seen someone do something so obscure and strange that he blinked several times and then wondered why it hadn’t always been that way with everyone. This was one of those times. 

 

    Who was he becoming?

 

•

 

    What would be more painful than a bleeding heart? Lu Han hadn’t known, none of the times Jongin had said it— that his heart was bleeding— and back then, Lu Han hadn’t been such an easy crier, but he’d cried. Because what could be more painful than a bleeding heart?    

 

    And yet he felt it on a daily basis now, the bleeding of heart. The output hadn’t stopped and he couldn’t imagine it ever would. His chest was always painful and tight and he thought, _how could Jongin live like this?_ Because he was weak, so weak, and it made him want to explode or for the world to end.

 

    Lu Han carried an unbelievable amount of guilt with him and he barely knew why.

 

—

 

    He settled in the middle of a patch of wildflowers. “This is good.”

 

    Sehun stood over him, watching, curious. 

 

    “This is good,” Lu Han repeated. “For my unbelievably and unreasonably sore legs.”

 

    “Good things come in threes.”

 

    “Not for virgins,” Lu Han responded and Sehun laughed. 

 

    “Are we going to be touristy? You’re sitting in a tiny grass island behind our hotel.”

 

    “Not yet. Take a picture.”

 

    “Of what?”

 

    “Of me. I’m gonna remember this.”

 

    “Remember what? The dumpsters behind you?”

 

    Lu Han threw uprooted grass at him. “I’m gonna remember you, my unbelievably and unreasonably sore legs, and the fact that the dumpsters don’t really smell all that much.”

 

    “Can’t argue with that.”

 

—

 

    Sehun was terrible with the camera. Lu Han could be at point blank and the picture would still find a way to be blurry. 

 

    “My hands are shaky,” Sehun complained. “And you’re designating me camera-man.”

 

    “Why are they shaky?”

 

    Sehun looked down, fanning out his fingers. “I don’t know.”

 

—

 

    Lu Han leaned back onto Sehun’s chest pretending he was resting, even though in reality he was just sniffing Sehun’s neck.

 

    “You’re too big for this,” Sehun said. “The fake-sleeping routine.”

 

    “What?” Lu Han narrowed his eyes. “And is Joohyun? Is this about height?”

 

    “She doesn’t do that. She’s too mature.”

 

    “She’s too mature and you’re too boring. I’m going to fall asleep for real if you keep talking.”

 

—

 

    Lu Han wasn’t awfully interested in the Eiffel Tower. It was _the_ place to go. So much so that it grew tired. 

 

    He’d tolerate art museums and nothing more mainstream than that. 

 

    “You’re such a fake hipster. There’s nothing wrong with visiting a popular site. It’s still a site. You’ll still have another picture with another memory.”

 

    “Another memory of what? Posing for a picture?”

 

    “You want all candids then? Fake hipster. I’m not your cameraman.”

 

    “Who asked you to take pictures, dude?”

 

—

 

    “Don’t call me dude.” Sehun crossed his arms. “You lost dude privileges when you seduced me.”

 

    Lu Han had no words. Actually, he had one word, and he said it in utter disbelief. “Dude.”

 

—

 

    “Dude, dude, dude,” he said, face pressed against Sehun’s shoulder. “Will you buy our tickets? The train won’t wait forever. I’m gonna pee my pants, _dude_. ”

 

    “I liked it better when you said Sehunnie.”

 

    “You lost Sehunnie privileges.”

 

—

 

    “Please?” Sehun pled, covering his hand on a subway pole. “Stop calling me dude? When’d you get so stubborn? So rude?”

 

    Lu Han stumbled into him when their second train jerked to a stop. Sehun threw an arm over his shoulders and pulled him close, words whispered in Lu Han’s ear. “Please, Lu. It sounds all wrong. It reminds me of Chanyeol and I can’t think of him with you around.”

 

    Lu Han couldn’t say no, not to that, so he let Sehun kiss his temple. He wouldn’t want to remember Baekhyun around Sehun, though now that he thought about it, Baekhyun had kissed Sehun first. 

    

    “Do you remember Baekhyun?” he asked. 

 

    “That guy doesn’t like me. Don’t like him either.”

 

    “If we got married you’d have to like him.”

 

    “Well we didn’t, now did we?”

 

—

 

    Lu Han was in his essence at the most obscure coffee shop he could possibly find. Sehun huffed, taking in their muted chromatic surroundings. There was a single source of light filtering its way through a window. Lu Han claimed that corner immediately. 

 

    Sehun sat across from him, playing with the sugar packets on the table. Lu Han smiled at him and he relaxed visibly. 

 

    “You’re very weird.”

 

    Lu Han’s eyes floated shut and he leaned forwards onto his arms sleepily. Sehun ran a finger through his bangs. “You’re very weird, Lu. But I guess I’m not normal either.”

 

    “You left your life and girlfriend and billion dollars just to play with the hair of the guy you were running away from.”

 

    Sehun’s laugh was light. 

 

—

 

    “Do we have to be tourists today? We can be tourists whenever we want. Today we should be nothing and do nothing except eat pastries.”

 

    Sehun nodded.

 

—

 

    “I’m bloated.”

 

    “That’s bad.”

 

    “Order more."

    

—

 

    Lu Han felt like his stomach was going to explode. He was never having sugar ever again. 

 

    Sehun patted his own stomach. “There go my abs.”

 

    “I’ll miss them,” Lu Han said. “Tell them I will.”

 

    Sehun’s smile was saccharine. Lu Han was going to miss all of him. 

 

•

    

     _“Go,”_ she had said. _“Sleep with them. Fuck them. You’ll only ever think of me.”_

 

    And she had been right. 

 

—

 

    Was it harder to leave or be left? Lu Han said it was to be left and Sehun begged to differ.

 

    “You’re in control,” Lu Han argued. “You can turn back around.”

 

    “You can’t always. Then you have to live with guilt.”

 

    “Live with guilt. I do that.”

 

    “Me too.”

 

—

 

    It wasn’t that he missed her, really. It was more that she haunted his mind. It wasn’t fair. He shouldn’t have been so easily manipulated. But it was hard to grow up with someone, thinking of them a certain way, and then suddenly let all of that go. He was learning. 

 

—

 

    Lu Han was very picky with their matinee. 

 

    “What’s the point?” Sehun asked. “We’re not gonna be watching. The more boring the better.”

 

    Lu Han’s eyes fluttered shut and he said, “That’s a waste of money,” but he didn’t object further. 

 

—

 

    Sehun pulled Lu Han onto his lap, nuzzling his neck. Lu Han’s fingers curled behind Sehun’s ear and he kissed the tender dip between his eye and nose, where it tickled. 

 

    “Sehunnie,” he said, and Sehun felt the vibration of his vocal chords. “I hope you know we’re at an opera.”

 

    “What?”

 

    “Yeah. But that means we won’t get in trouble, because the lady will be louder than I could possibly be.”

 

    Sehun shook his head, sighing. “But, Lu, she’ll be _loud_.”

 

—

 

    Lu Han wasn’t supposed to get drawn into the show. He was supposed to be moaning into Sehun’s mouth. 

 

    Instead his grip was tight on Sehun’s hair and he was sniffling a little. 

 

    “ _Stop crying,_ ” Sehun demanded. “Stop it. This is not what we came here for.”

 

    But the fat lady was crooning and Sehun’s ears were beginning to ring. And he hated when Lu Han cried. He really, really hated it. 

 

    He stood up, grasping Lu Han, and dragging him out of the theater. 

 

    “Hey,” Lu Han protested, but Sehun was mercilessly strong until they got into the bathroom and he could shove the younger boy into the stall and against the wall. 

 

    “Hey,” Sehun said, suddenly and unexpectedly bashful. “Stop crying. Why are you crying? I hate when you cry.”

 

    Lu Han looked up at him, all sad eyes and pink lips, and Sehun said, “You should never cry,” and then Lu Han dropped his head onto Sehun’s chest and cried more. 

 

—

 

    He wept for a good minute. 

 

    “It’s sad,” he said. “Everything’s sad. Every night I feel heavy. When other people are sad, I feel sad too. I can’t help it.”

 

    “It’s okay.” Sehun patted his back. “It’s okay. Let’s sneak into another show. Then you won’t have to be sad.”

 

—

 

    Lu Han was in his lap again, in the way, way back where they could barely see what the actors were doing onstage. 

 

    Sehun kissed his neck and Lu Han crooned softly. 

 

    “I’m gonna miss you, Sehunnie,” he mumbled in a slurred way, like he was drunk or drowsy or both. 

 

    There was a constriction of Sehun’s throat, which he couldn’t swallow away. 

 

    He was going to miss Lu Han too, and that felt all wrong. It felt wrong because missing Lu Han wasn’t something you did. What you did was stay with him forever. 

 

 

—

 

    And why couldn’t he stay with Lu Han forever? Why did it feel rebellious and dangerous and outrageous?

 

    Was it because that’s how Sehun always felt? Illegitimate? 

 

    Did he forget that Lu Han was his betrothed? 

 

•

 

    Sehun was holding his hand, and not in the way Sehun sometimes did, when Sehun was mad and wanted to take him away from where they were. This time, Sehun held his hand in the way that Lu Han knew he was memorizing the feel of their fingers together. 

 

    Lu Han didn’t look up at him to smile, because he knew if he did, if he acknowledged this, that Sehun would take it away. Instead his eyes stayed trained on the ground, counting his footsteps. 

    

    He reached thirty-three when Sehun began tugging and saying his name. 

 

    Lu Han looked up at him to smile. Sehun’s dark eyes crested like the moon and he smiled too. 

 

    “I just needed to know if you wanted to eat,” he said, voice washed coyly. “Why are you watching like that?”

 

    “Why not?”

 

    “Don’t do that,” Sehun rebuked playfully and let go of his hand. 

 

•

 

    Lu Han knew of ends Sehun would never see, and even if he was blind, it was impossible for Sehun to ignore that.

—

 

    That was to say, he accepted the younger man to be infinitely wiser and jaded and beautified. 

 

•

 

    Lu Han stopped giving his heart to the meals he was bought and given. Because days were blending and he was wilting. 

 

    “Lu-Hannie?”

 

    Lu Han avoided his gaze because he didn’t like to cry, even though he did it a lot. Sehun’s two fingers were under his chin, and then they lifted the weight of his droopy head. 

 

    “What’s wrong? Aren’t you hungry?”

 

     Lu Han blinked through his blurry vision, finding Sehun’s eyes fearful. 

 

    “What’s wrong now?”

 

—

 

    If Lu Han was fond of understatements, he’d say he adored Sehun’s eyes, because they were gorgeous and intense and they made his stomach knot. 

 

    If Lu Han was fond of overstatements, he’d say he forgot his own name every time Sehun’s gaze flickered to meet his own. 

 

    If Lu Han was honest and true he’d admit he closed his own eyes to avoid seeing Sehun’s because they were enough to make him want to live, but too little to actually keep him. 

 

—

 

    Sehun treated him like Lu Han treated his dying flowers. 

 

    He sat Lu Han on their bed and knelt down in front, the way he had the first day they’d arrived. 

 

    “Lu,” he said. “Please tell me what’s wrong.”

 

    He stroked Lu Han’s hair, smiling faintly when Lu Han leaned into his hand. 

 

    “C’mon,” he pled. “Lu, baby—“ He paused, like he’d said something wrong. Then he said it again. “Baby.”

 

    Lu Han closed his eyes. 

 

    “You don’t like that?” Sehun asked. “Can I call you something else? Like— like maybe— You’re like a petal. Can I call you that? Petal?”

 

    Lu Han felt a rush of warmth before it was replaced by a splintering dread. He was doing it again— letting Jongin be replaced. He was doing it again, allowing it by a man who’d leave him the second they landed back in their homeland. 

    

    “I can’t call you Hannie,” Sehun argued. “And Lu-Hannie is clunky. Baby is generic.”

 

    “Whatever you want, Sehunnie,” Lu Han said, compliant and defeated. “I like anything you do.”

 

    The sad thing was, he wasn’t lying.

 

—

 

    But, see, even if he was replacing Jongin, why with Sehun? 

 

    Sehun’s stare still followed girls’ hips and the way they all flipped their hair in Lu Han’s face, like Lu Han was invisible. He was invisible, except to a select few, who noticed that he was far too pretty to be a boy. Mostly these people were men. 

 

    “Petal,” Sehun would say, pulling Lu Han’s hand into the pocket of his jacket. “We’ve somewhere to be, don’t we?”

 

    Lu Han could have played clueless, but he let Sehun be jealous. For the sake of not being jealous later, when it was Lu Han, invisible with frigid hands. 

 

    Because he knew, when the doors closed, Sehun’s mouth would be on his, and his palms would be in a far warmer place than the inside lining of Sehun’s pockets. 

 

    But, see, even if he was replacing Jongin, why was he turning into the jealous type?

 

—

 

    The people who noticed him were almost always older people, with more thoughtful eyes.

 

    But Sehun said just because Lu Han thought they were thoughtful didn’t mean they were. And older wasn’t thirty with baggy clothes and four day old stubble. 

 

    He said Lu Han was too young, right when he was twisting his fingers where a straight man wasn’t supposed to put them. 

 

—

 

    Sehun became a maven with Lu Han in bed, to where some days Lu Han woke up already half-hard and whimpering. 

 

    Lu Han wasn’t used to this. That probably made it more fun. 

 

—

 

    One day they argued. It was silly, really, over something as simple as Sehun waking him to a loud bout of laughter with some girl outside their room. Probably room-service. Weeks of small hesitant perversions grew into heat.

 

    “Why can’t you be more like Jongin?” Lu Han asked, having lost control of his senses, incensed, and wanting to spit fire. 

 

    “More dead, you mean?” Sehun spat, and then his words fell damp. 

 

    “More dead?” 

 

    Sehun looked at him, and Lu Han saw confusion on his features, then unrestrained fear. Why was Sehun always so scared? 

 

—

 

    Lu Han came back from his walk just to see Sehun sitting at the balcony, blowing rings of smoke. 

 

    “What’re you doing?” 

 

    Sehun turned, startled, before blowing another perfect ‘O’. 

 

    “You’re back.”

 

    Lu Han held out the bunch of weeds he’d found.

 

    “Weeds are invasive,” he said. 

 

    “Those are weeds?”

 

    “Weeds can be pretty. Parasites can be pretty.”

 

    “Are you calling me a parasite?” Sehun flicked open the box of cigarettes he was holding onto. “Have a smoke. It’ll cleanse you.”

 

    “It’s true that Jongin is dead.”

 

    “I’m not dating you,” Sehun said. “So why compare us?” He stuck a smoke between Lu Han’s lips. “These are French.”

 

    Lu Han inhaled too quickly and choked. Sehun sighed before sliding a glass of water towards him. “I knew it.”

 

    “That’s why you’re a parasite,” Lu Han managed between gasps. “You live inside of me, but you’re an alien body.”

 

    “Is that a sexual reference? Because you could have been more clever.”

 

    “Sehun, please.”

 

    Sehun heaved a heavy, unwilling sigh, dragging his cigarette from where it rested in the parting of his mouth. “Fine, Petal. What?”

 

    “Don’t call me that. Not if you’re unwilling to take the rest of the flower.”

 

    “You still sound like you’re making innuendos, so, okay, Lu, I _deflowered_ you. Doesn’t that say something?”

 

    “Like what? Like you were bored? And you didn’t.”

 

    “I basically did,” Sehun grinned. “Do you think I can’t find a hot chick?”

 

    “It’s not cheating with your husband.”

 

    “Are we married? Or did you run away?”

 

    “You ran.”

 

    “We both ran. Separately. And then we stuck together. Doesn’t that say something, Petal? Maybe you’re not as bad as I thought. Maybe being gay isn’t as bad as I thought. Maybe I don’t miss Joohyun anymore.”

 


	7. soft, you're just soft

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Final chapter. Enjoy!

 

 _We measure ourselves in the rate of our growth,_ Lu Han thought, _because who ever talks about how they used to act or feel as a child— who ever goes up to someone, like in a revelation, and say: I used to think girls had cooties? Nobody, because that was so long ago, so forever ago, that it doesn’t define us anymore. If someone tells you they used to be a certain way, it’s because the change happened now, in this moment, even if it happened before too. It was now, but not anymore._

 

That was why he’d mention her, in a conversation about Lu Han and himself. Sehun loved her until yesterday, or today, or two seconds ago, or maybe even now but not anymore. 

 

    And the now was a problem to Lu Han, who couldn’t even bring himself to forget. Everywhere he turned there was Jongin, Jongin, and Jongin again. 

 

    He wanted Sehun to forget Joohyun in her whole, but he knew he’d never let go of Jongin, because the dead were martyred and the living worthless. 

 

—

 

    Sehun looked brooding. It was attractive, since Lu Han never brooded. He didn’t have the right formula for what went into it—  he had the internal suffering, but not the ability to sit and stare at a singular spot somewhere over the horizon. 

 

    He didn’t have the features either: the serious, stark, unforgettable features. He had a crayon smile. 

 

—

 

    A crayon smile was a smile, according to Sehun, that was crazy and red and looked like a kid drew it in. 

 

    Lu Han said it meant he smiled really big. 

 

    Sehun said he was wrong. Sehun said he couldn’t believe Lu Han wouldn’t know this, because Lu Han was so smart. 

 

    Sehunnie was smart too, Lu Han insisted. So smart that Lu Han had a hard time staying away from him, because Lu Han liked smart men. 

 

    Was Jongin a smart man?

 

    Don’t talk about Jongin, Lu Han said, abruptly, defensively. He remembered what Sehun had said before, about Jongin being very dead. And besides, Jongin had only been a boy and Sehun was a man.

 

    Sehun was sorry, and even though he didn’t say so, Lu Han could feel it when Sehun kissed the tips of his ears and then said his name against the shell of his left ear, the one which burned bright. 

 

    Sehun liked when he was mad, he could tell. Maybe because he had forgiven Sehun so many times before. And maybe because of something else, which Sehun wouldn’t realize, because Lu Han could feel ends that Sehun would never know. 

 

—

 

    Lu Han talked to his mother one morning. 

 

    “Lu Han,” she said, “please be truthful. Are you alone?”

 

    He looked back at Sehun’s sleeping form. His breathing was peaceful. 

 

    “Mom. I don’t know if I can tell you.”

 

    That was enough for her. “You’re with _him_ ,” she decided. “Sehun. Why?”

 

    “Don’t say anything,” he implored. “Please.”

 

    “Did you two leave together?” She was a little out of breath, and Lu Han couldn’t tell if she was excited in a good or bad way. 

 

    “No. We ran into each other at Baekhyun’s. And he was— he couldn’t drive, so I took care of him, you know?”

 

    “He didn’t want you, and you still acted like yourself. You were too nice, Lu Han.”

 

    “I ran from him too, remember?”

 

    “His parents are waiting for him to come home. He’s got to run out of money sometime, right? When they found out you were both gone, they tried to make it look like you two eloped. But he got in touch with his girlfriend, and said he was alone. But, oh, she’s getting married. Does he know? The lot of them are such a mess, Han.”

 

    “And you wanted me married into that,” Lu Han said, jumping upon her words, anger rising in his throat as bile. “You wanted me married into that ‘ _mess’,_ and now you’re saying I was too nice, when I finally had the guts to make my own way.”

 

    “Baby,” she entreated. “I’m sorry. I wanted to—“

 

    “After everything I’ve been through,” Lu Han seethed. “All the three years of grieving, of trying to reroot myself. I opened my own branch of the company. It was doing well. It _is_ doing well. You began to pressure me. For the money?”

 

    “When you lived alone, I was afraid. When you live with us, I’m afraid, because you aren’t talking to us or anyone else. You’re working, but you’ve worked enough.”

 

    “How does a business deal solve that? My marriage, a business deal? How does that work? Did you see him, with his girlfriend, and decide he’d dedicate it all to me? He wouldn’t look at me, and if he did, it was in disgust. His girlfriend came up to me, and she said— she said, ‘Lu Han, if Sehun lays a finger on you, tell me. Tell me because I don’t sleep with _fags_.’ Like I was diseased. And _my_ husband. 

 

    “You wanted this for me? You push me into this when I was too weak to do anything but want to please you. Then you stand here, and you say, ‘Lu Han, you were too nice,’ when you were willing to give me up to an empty bed every night. You want this for me, mom?” He took a breath and it hitched in his throat.“You want this for me,” he repeated, chest heaving. 

 

    He barely heard her response, because he couldn’t really hear at all. There was blood rushing in his ears, too loud, and he could pretend he was actually near the ocean. He could’ve been near the ocean, except suddenly he was pulled back off his knees. He was being held tightly. His phone was wrenched from his hand and the call was ended. 

 

    “I didn’t know I was shouting.” He didn’t mean to wake Sehun up.

 

    Sehun fixed Lu Han on his lap, pecking him on the lips and pulling an arm over his shoulder. He had morning breath, but Lu Han was appreciative of it. It meant he was alive. Lu Han brushed a lock out of Sehun’s sleepy eyes.

    

    “Lu,” he said. “I want you to know I tried. I tried to say no. But I tried for me, and not you. I should have tried for you too.”

 

    Lu Han liked his voice like this. It was deep and raspy. 

 

    “Why would you have?” Lu Han muttered. “You hated me.”

 

    “I didn’t know Joohyun told you that.”

 

    “Wouldn’t have changed much.”

 

    Sehun didn’t object. “Do you want to go somewhere?”

 

    Lu Han sighed, digging his nails into his thigh. “I want to sleep.”

 

—

 

    Sehun insisted on cradling him, though Lu Han was okay by himself.

 

    Between Jongin and Sehun, he’d been doing okay on his own. He’d earned money and invested it, donated it, kept it. He spent it on the things he liked, gave it away to the people who needed it. He had a vision. 

 

    It was just a branch, but it had taken him from the crevices of grief and surfaced him somewhere else. A better place. 

 

    He was scared he’d be pulled back under by someone else who was only meant to leave him.

 

    He didn’t react to Sehun’s brushes against his arm or stomach. He pretended to sleep until Sehun fell asleep too and then he got up and walked away. 

 

•

 

    Oh Sehun had never been a dreamer. While it was obvious those around him, like Lu Han, had particularly strong visions, Sehun had always dreamt dully. 

 

    His night horrors consisted of discovering he’d made his way to school without pants. He’d stand naked in front of a class of thirty, debating fleeing or staying put and pretending he wasn’t being laughed at. 

 

    His fantasies were no more vivid, never going all the way, always stopping with the end of a kiss. Joohyun had always appeared half-dressed, but nothing less. 

 

    That was until he fell asleep on the thirty-first of April, burrowed between zealously puffy blankets and with Lu Han breathing onto his bare chest. He knew Lu Han wasn’t sleeping; the boy’s even breathing would hitch every once in a while, lashes fluttering despite his closed lids. He let Lu Han be. 

 

    He drifted without ambition, feeling Lu Han slip from his grasp. And then he was watching himself sleep.

 

    Why was his first instinct to find Lu Han, when he discovered he could float anywhere?

 

    He was going to search for Joohyun. 

 

    He floated quite easily over the continent of Asia, stopping once or twice to wave at shepherds who panicked and whose sheep went wild, and then posing for a picture in Kazakhstan, floating mid-air and proud. Sehun was enjoying the fame.

 

    Then he found Joohyun kissing another man. 

 

—

 

    If Sehun was the god he felt he was, he’d have raised hell on earth. He’d have summoned the hands of Satan to guide him in his destruction of all things living and all things alive. 

 

    Living and alive were two different things; living was Sehun, who was nothing but the fury that consumed him. Alive were people like Lu Han and— and Joohyun, who couldn’t live for just a minute, just a minute, without being alive. She couldn’t wait a minute for him. 

 

    The guy, Sehun couldn’t recognize. He wasn’t any better than Sehun, except that he made Joohyun laugh a lot— giggle, actually, like she was young. She was young again, after aging Sehun. She became young again without him. 

 

    Her hair was a stunning silky shoulder-length and the guy was running his fingers through it, just the same as Sehun used to. Sehun had to close his eyes because a knot was beginning to burn in the pit of his stomach. He thought he hadn’t missed her. Why did it feel like fire?

 

    “It’s your machismo,” she said, cutting into his deliberations. She turned to glare at Sehun, who was suddenly there, in the corner of her bedroom. “You’re tricking yourself into thinking you actually care. If you cared you wouldn’t have left without me, after I’d been asking to go together for so long. You wanted rid of me, too.”

 

    “I just— I just wanted to be free,” Sehun stuttered. “I couldn’t stand it anymore. All of it.”

 

    “It’s your machismo,” she repeated, swiveling to face Sehun’s replacement. They smiled at each other, and Sehun recognized it. It was exactly how Lu Han smiled at him. 

 

    Lu Han. 

 

    Panic pooled inside him. He was supposed to find Lu Han. He didn’t know why. He just knew he was supposed to. 

 

—

 

     _What if_ I’m _dying?_ he thought, not feeling his feet or hands, not knowing where to find Lu Han, not knowing if Lu Han was alive or not, dead or what, real or fake. 

 

    Lu Han never existed, that was what. You couldn’t be found if you never existed. 

 

    He remembered what Lu Han had said. _Live a little. Live a lot. Have lived. Never live. Die._

 

    And it was wrong. The right sequence was _die, die, die, die—_

    

    He was being shaken. “Sehunnie.” Lu Han interrupted him in the throes of his  nightmarish sleep. “Sehunnie.” His fingers closed precociously around Sehun’s wrist, as if he knew Sehun’s first reaction would be to lash out into the air. His other hand was grasping at Sehun’s trembling chin, holding it cold and unyielding. Sehun was drenched in sweat and Lu Han was straddling him, holding him down. 

 

    Sehun let out a long-suffering breath, opening his eyes to hazy light and Lu Han’s golden orbs. His lips were pursed, brow furrowed. 

 

    “Lu,” he groaned, throwing an arm over his face. 

 

    “Are you alright?” Lu Han’s grip loosened on his wrist and he leaned back. “Nightmare?”

 

    Sehun blinked drowsily, catching his breath. “Lu?”

 

    “Yes?”

 

    “You’re not leaving.”

 

    “Huh?”

 

    “You’re not leaving, Petal.”

 

    “I’m not going anywhere,” Lu Han reassured. “Was I in your dream?”

 

    “No. You were gone.”

 

    “To be gone I have to leave first.”

 

    “So don’t.”

 

    Lu Han exhaled, stretching himself onto his tummy like a cat. He laid his head on Sehun’s chest, humming a song Sehun couldn’t recognize. 

 

    “I can feel your heart beat, Sehunnie.”

 

“Is it scary to feel?” Sehun asked, voice low. “Is it beating too fast?” 

 

    “I think it’s beating fast for me,” Lu Han responded, voice waxing sweetly. “It makes me want you.”

 

—

 

    “Have me, Petal,” Sehun implored. “Won’t you?”

 

    Lu Han gazed down at him, solemn and meditative. “What did you dream about?”

 

    “Please touch me.”

 

    Lu Han ducked his head, timorous, but complied, caressing the expanse of Sehun’s chest with his nose and lips. Sehun couldn’t help but laugh, it was so cute. 

 

    “What’re you doing?”

 

    Lu Han’s lips formed a pout against his skin. “You do this to me.”

 

    That he said that was what made Sehun hard, less his action itself. 

 

    “That’s a little different. Do what you _know_ , Lu. Do what you’d want to do for me.”

 

    Lu Han let out a small puff of breath, frowning. Then he muttered something in Chinese. 

 

    “What?”

 

    “I want to suck you,” Lu Han translated before repeating the phrase. Sehun groaned. He was all the way hard now and he pulled up his knees so he could gain enough leverage to bounce Lu Han on his lap. 

 

    Lu Han stuttered between moans, another phrase. 

 

    “Please,” he managed. “Make love to me.”

 

—

 

    Sehun couldn’t remember the last time he’d made love to someone. He fucked and had sex, but he didn’t make _love_. 

 

    But trying to differentiate with Lu Han and failing, he realized it’s what they’d been been doing it all along. 

 

—

 

    He painted his admiration with steady fingers and a heady roll of his hips. Lu Han covered his face with his hands, moaning into his palms. 

 

    Sehun nudged them away, so he could see Lu Han’s face, flushed and blissful. 

 

    “Why are you shy?”

 

    He pulled Lu Han upright, peppering the younger with fond kisses that deepened so he was completely engaged, completely taken by Lu Han. Lu Han’s arms folded over Sehun’s shoulders and he broke away from kissing, instead tucking his face into the crook of the Sehun’s neck. 

 

    “What’s wrong?” Sehun asked, rocking him back and forth and feeling Lu Han’s spine arch against his fingers. 

 

    “Just do it, Sehunnie,” he insisted, voice melancholy. “Just do it. Don’t make it complicated.”

 

    Sehun’s heart lurched in its place. He worked quietly from there on out. 

 

•

 

    Exhaustion was a disease with which Lu Han was afflicted affectedly. It made for not only sleepiness, but an inherent, incontestable desire for being unconscious. So he wanted to be forgiven for passing out in Sehun’s lap, during their only third lovemaking— because simple sex had grown into too much love to be anything else. 

 

    It wasn’t because he was bored. In fact, he could have insisted Sehun of the opposite, such was his method of passing out, but Lu Han wasn’t a good liar. 

 

    Sehun glowered at the television, flicking through channels like they’d personally offended him. His eyes glittered in a twisted color of choler and Lu Han wanted to hide himself. 

 

    He’d wronged Sehun when Sehun had needed him most. 

 

    “I told you you’re too old to fake sleep.”

 

    Lu Han almost jumped out of his skin, but he repositioned his head leisurely. “You said too big.” 

 

    Sehun didn’t speak again. 

 

    “Sehunnie, I’m sorry. It wasn’t you. It was me.” He paused, continuing when Sehun appeared unaffected. “My body fights me for sleep. It’s like my natural state. Being asleep.”

 

    “You sleep all the time,” Sehun responded, casually tossing the remote onto Lu Han’s side of the bed, having decidedly given up on TV. “You’re lucky I’m not all that interested in being a rapist.”

 

    Lu Han swallowed. “You could’ve continued. It doesn’t bother me.” The thought was almost appealing to him. Maybe it would’ve woken him up, and if not, maybe it’d appear as a dream.

 

    “Is that what Jongin did to you, when you fell asleep in his lap, him inside of you? He just continued?”

 

    “Well, no—“

 

    “Because you never did that to him,” Sehun intervened. “So why are you asking me this?”

 

    Lu Han searched for Sehun’s fingers and brought them to his cheek. “You’re not Jongin. You’re Sehunnie.”

 

    Sehun laughed derisively. “Yeah, well, maybe you should decide what Sehunnie means to you.”

 

—

 

    Sehun was inclined to let out heavy sighs and Lu Han sighed right back. He sighed his way into Sehun’s arms before Sehun could object, or so much as notice when Lu Han began nuzzling into his neck.

 

    “Sehunnie,” Lu Han crooned. “I’m sorry, Sehunnie. You mean the world to me, Sehunnie, and I’m saying that through the fears I carry.”

 

    Sehun was stoic, but Lu Han saw his lip twitch, so Lu Han shifted, tugging at Sehun’s hair. “You act so tough, don’t you, Sehunnie? But you’re just soft. Isn’t that what your girlfriend tells you? I like that you’re soft. I won’t ask you to be tough, but I’m just gonna put this out there: if you want to punish me then do it. Now’s your chance, because I don’t think you’ll ever be angry with me ever again.”

 

    A smile spread over Sehun’s face— one Lu Han knew he had tried to resist. 

 

    “You’ve really gotten wackier and wackier. Do you mean it?”

 

    “Mean what? That you can—“

 

    “No,” Sehun flushed, mouth still quirked. “That I mean the world to you?”

 

    “I don’t say things I don’t mean,” Lu Han responded, laying Sehun’s hand on his waist. “Forgive me. Have me. Whatever you want.”

 

    “You won’t fall asleep again?” Sehun asked. 

 

    “Why don’t you make sure I don’t?” 

 

    Sehun laughed, then grew serious. “Lu?”

 

    “Oh?”

 

    “Yesterday, before you woke me up, I dreamt of Joohyun. She’s happy. But what about me?”

 

    “You’ve been thinking about her for weeks,” Lu Han said, remembering how Joohyun had called Sehun up to threaten him with her marriage. “What is with us rich people and using marriage as leverage?”

 

    “What about me?” Sehun insisted. 

 

    “What, do you miss her now?”

 

    Lu Han was feeling suddenly very-threatened, in a very un-Lu Han way.

 

    Lu Han wasn’t very much feeling like himself anymore. 

 

—

 

    Some spots were better for sleeping than others. For example, car rides were good on sunny days, but airplanes were never, the bright rays potentially blinding. 

 

    Restaurants were fun, when you got those long, cushiony benches, and stretched out onto your back after a big meal, head in lap of someone who wasn’t going to object to your declarations about how you’d never eat again. 

 

    The bottom of a kiddie slide on a hot day, when it wasn’t hot enough for the material to scorch, but enough to feel the sun’s fingers press down on your eyelids, coaxing in a most warmly fashion. 

 

    Bumpy bus rides to places you didn’t want to go. Stretch out the time as far as you can. 

 

    The sofa, not when you were kicked off a bed, but in the lazy afternoon of Wednesday, realizing you’ve absolutely nothing to do except your four hours worth of work. The sofa during a movie that you didn’t like enough to keep your eyes open for. Then you could pretend to never wake up so someone would carry you. 

 

    Coffee shops after a full, steaming mug of cappuccino, cinnamon sprinkled over the foamy top. It was easy. Just lean forwards, elbows on the table, and lose vision of the world. This worked when you were alone, but sometimes with people too. Except when they wanted to talk. Then you just mumbled back incoherent strings of something until they woke you up or left you alone. Left you alone, mostly, by getting up angrily and leaving the place. 

 

    Sehun’s arms, if your name was Lu Han and you told him you were sleepy. Then he’d open them up, slowly, pretending he didn’t care, but really when you nuzzled into him, he would exhale like he’d been given the world’s jewels to hold. Sehun was the best place to sleep, even though he was bony in some places, and sometimes his elbow would hit your face because he wasn’t used to being needed the way you needed him and still manage to write in the notebook he’d begun to carry around. 

 

    You never peeked in that one because you were scared if you did and he found out, he’d stop scribbling. His scribbling was more important than anything you could think of at any given time. 

 

    And beds were made for sleeping, sleeping was made for beds, but beds were where you managed to nightmare more than you dreamed. 

 

—

 

    “I don’t miss her. I miss me.”

 

    “Miss you? Me too.”

 

    “I’m right here.”

 

    “No, I miss me. Before…”

 

    “Yeah.”

 

    “Yeah. But somehow I feel more natural.”

 

    “Must be all the touristing.” Sehun was sardonic. “But me too.”

 

—

    Sehun gifted him with flowers and stuck them in his hair. 

 

    “My petal,” he said, and wrinkled his nose, like it just occurred to him how cheesy he was. 

 

    “You picked up weeds.”

 

    “I bought these,” Sehun said, and then frowned. He’d evidently been cheated.

 

—

 

 

    Their suite was gold layered on gold, tapestried through cushions and sheets. It was poorly filtered light in the mornings through sheer curtains and sky lights. The bedroom opened to a living area with tightly puffed sofas and a television that slid forwards into view whenever restaurants were too far for sore boys’ legs. 

 

    If Sehun wanted a smoke, he’d step out onto the balcony, stare at the Eiffel, sigh, and say, “I want to go there someday.”

 

    Lu Han would dangle after him, snicker against the back of his shirt and then pucker his lips until Sehun stuck the stick in his mouth. He’d inhale, and mostly choke.

 

    “Don’t breathe it in so fast. It’s okay if you don’t inhale all the way right now. You’re inexperienced.”

 

    “Mouth cancer,” Lu Han mumbled.

  
  
    “Lung cancer.”

 

    “Mouth _and_ lung cancer,” Lu Han would say crossly, snatching and crushing the tip of the joint against cool metal railing. 

 

    What he didn’t mind was how dangerous he felt kissing someone who tasted like smoke. 

 

—

 

    There was a kitchenette behind the sofas. Lu Han brewed coffee and sprinkled cinnamon on top. Sehun would sniff him after. 

 

    “Coffee smells better than it tastes,” he’d comment. “Remember when you barely talked?”

 

    “You didn’t want me to,” Lu Han responded, leaning into Sehun’s nose and mouth. “You talk about this every day.”

 

    “I do this every day too,” Sehun said, sly as a fox, pushing Lu Han onto the counter and inviting himself between the younger’s legs. “Does it get old?”

 

—

 

    A hotel was just a hotel, a city just a city, a country just a country, and not his own. Not either of his own. But a room could be your whole world. The table positioned lovingly in the corner, fresh flowers arranged daily: that was the whole damn universe when it wanted to be. And it came at the easy price of one million won a night. 

 

—

 

     _Ten thousand count thread silk sheets_ ; Lu Han wondered if he could count every single thread and come to ten thousand. 

 

     _Hand-crafted furniture;_ was it possible to find the fingerprints of he who had imagined and welded and polished? 

 

     _Stunning view of Paris at night;_ Lu Han couldn’t spot Sehun among the hundreds of busy people. He couldn’t spot Sehun at all, not since Sehun grew irrepressibly angry and wouldn’t say why, just muttering, _“What am I fucking doing?”_

 

    Excusing himself out of Lu Han’s sight, he left the latter in terribly bad humor. 

 

    He wanted to tell himself that Sehun would get the ass-beating of a lifetime when he came back, or at least the silent treatment of a lifetime, but who was he kidding? Lu Han was soft and he would wear his anger in soft tears and soft words. 

 

—

 

    Sehun had nerve enough to appear heavy-lidded and drape himself over Lu Han’s figure, mumbling in some foreign tongue, and then beginning to _kiss_ Lu Han with tongue.

 

    He tasted bitter and soon Lu Han too began to feel light-headed. 

 

    Sehun was sloppy, and Lu Han’s anger faded into soft moans, soft brushes, soft softness.

 

    He took Sehun’s head and laid it on his bare chest, rubbing Sehun’s scalp with the tips of his fingers, and hummed. 

 

    “Sleep,” he said. “Sleep makes it all better.”

 

    If Sehun was anyone else, Lu Han would have been too forgiving. 

 

•

 

    Oh Sehun was very, very afraid of dying. He was afraid of being gone. He was afraid that his time of death would be sudden, halting, and then forgotten a speck in the sandbox of time. He was scared to exist one moment and then not the next. 

 

    He lived in paralyzing fear. 

 

    What was the point of doing anything— anything, when you could just die? Was it better to preserve your existence or make something of it, no matter how fleeting it may be? 

 

    Sometimes he was on the road, and he realized this, and his hands tightened white on the steering wheel. His heart pounded in his throat and ears. He was that close to dying. 

 

    He looked to the future, telling himself he wouldn’t have to worry then. If he could just wait until _then_. 

 

    But _then_ came around every next second, and when _then_ turned to a strangulated _now_ and the _now_ was his fear, then Sehun was only going to fear forever, forever. 

 

—

 

    “Can I use your phone? I want to call my father.”

 

    Lu Han looked up, surprised. He held out his cellphone. “I don’t think he has my number. You could get away with it.”

 

    Sehun sat down beside him, clearing his throat before dialing. 

 

    Two rings passed before there was a click and then the raspy voice of his father. “Hello? Lu Han?”

 

    Sehun swallowed. “Dad.”

 

    “Sehun,” the man growled. “Where the fuck are you?”

 

    “Paris.” Sehun was nervous in his stomach. 

 

    “Paris? Why the fuck are you in Paris, on Lu Han’s phone?” There was shuffling on the line, Sehun hearing him call, _“Ji-eun,”_ then Sehun’s mother rushing for the phone, and Sehun cursing. Lu Han was looking at him wide-eyed.

 

    “Why are you in Paris with Lu Han?” Oh Jieun demanded. “Where is Lu Han? Let me speak with him.”

 

    “Miss you too, ma. He’s not here.”

 

    “What, have you murdered him? The poor boy.”

 

    “Poor boy?” Sehun heard his father mutter derisively. 

 

    “Poor boy?” Sehun repeated. 

 

    “Did you elope with him? You’ve been gone forever. You never leave like this.”

 

    The nervousness afflicted his hands which closed clinchingly around the small device . “I wanted you to get my car from the airport.”

 

    “ _Our_ car. You stole it.”

 

    “Yeah, okay. I just don’t want it to get towed. Isn’t there a limit to how long I can leave it? That’s why I called.”

 

    “Not to apologize?” his father butted in. “You ran from your marriage, left your position a hole, and stole our car. You’re not sorry?"

 

    Sehun glanced at his companion who hadn’t brushed his hair nor his teeth and who always looked at him with hopeful eyes. “Nope.”

 

—

 

    Lu Han wrung his hands.

 

    “I might’ve left some of my papers in there.”

 

    “Were they important?”

 

    Lu Han shook his head.

 

    “Then don’t worry about it.”

 

—

 

    The lube Lu Han brought was strawberry flavored. Sehun was sorry to say he actually liked it. 

 

—

 

    Sehun always had loads of fun, but he especially enjoyed Lu Han on his tummy. That was when his butt was perky and Sehun enjoyed the taste of lube. He liked having Lu Han, even though Lu Han was a boy and Sehun was straight, or half-straight, or half-gay for Lu. 

 

—

 

    “Sehunnie,” Lu Han whisper-whined. “I’m on the phone.”

 

     _“What’s he doing?”_ Sehun heard Baekhyun demand on the other end. _“Do I have to come kill him for you?”_

 

    Sehun grinned against the nape of Lu Han’s neck, listening to the younger stutter through a _no, not really, but if you really want to—_  

 

    “He wants to talk to you,” Lu Han said, holding out his phone and subsequently curling into Sehun’s embrace, close enough so he’d be able to hear the breadth of the conversation. 

    

    “Hello?”

 

    “Hello, jerkwad. I hope you’re treating Lu Han well. If you dare lay a finger on him, I’m going to tear each one of your fingers and toes off.”

 

    “That’s a little harsh, isn’t it?” Sehun laughed, tugging a little on the shell of Lu Han’s ear. 

 

    “Are you doubting me?” Byun Baekhyun asked, five-foot-six and as light as a hummingbird. 

 

    “Oh no, no, no,” Sehun reassured. “I just wanted you to know that—“ he paused for dramatic effect— “that Lu Han’s a way better kisser than you.”

 

_“What the—“_

 

    Sehun hung up quick, tossing the phone onto the armchair and then pinning Lu Han underneath him. 

    

    “Did I do good?”

 

    “I’m better than Baek?” Lu Han asked. The phone was ringing again, and Sehun could practically see Baekhyun spouting steam from his ears. “Should I pick up?”

 

    “Leave it.” He lured Lu Han into wanton kisses. The phone was still ringing, minutes later. He groaned, “Fine,” and stumbled three steps to the armchair, telling Lu Han how he should pick better friends. He accepted the call without a moment of hesitation. 

 

    “Won’t you fuck off, Byun?” he asked, loudly and sardonically. “I’m a little busy here kissing your _friend_.” He waved off Lu Han’s yell of protest. 

 

    There was a heavily processed quiet before he heard a breath. 

 

     _“Sehun?”_  

 

    Sehun’s limbs froze steadfast. 

 

    “Oh,” he coughed frailly, wanting to do it again and again until his lungs ejected themselves from his body. “Joo.”

 

•

 

    When Lu Han said the living were worthless, he didn’t mean they were really worthless. He meant they were worth too much to quantify in presence. They were worth so much that you only realized it in their absence.

 

     But that absence had to be trained and practiced. It couldn’t be an absolute absence. It had to be in waves of remembrance and non-absence. For Lu Han, he saw Jongin in his dreams and everywhere else he walked. Jongin had a sparkling non-absence. And that’s what kept Lu Han suffering. 

 

    For Sehun it must have been the phone calls. 

 

    Lu Han could sometimes control his, so when Sehun crumbled and stopped looking at him, he assumed the same position. 

 

—

 

    Regret was never worth it, so it was better to start realizing people’s worth while they were there. That was what Lu Han had learned. Except he’d never been ungrateful. He’d just taken presence granted in that he’d never turned over in his head that it could be taken away. 

 

•

 

    Sehun dreamt dully, but often he dreamt of those he hated or despised redeeming themselves to him, becoming his friends, his companions, and uncovering a soft, vulnerable side of themselves to _him_. In those visions he’d work carefully around them, finding he desired their acquaintance, to realize they weren’t so bad after all. 

 

    And then he’d wake up and realize they were that bad, and he did hate them, though when he saw them later that day, he’d _want_ the attachment they’d been offering in his dreams. 

He’d realize that he didn’t hate them for them, or even hate them at all, but that he was uncomfortable of his own shortcomings as a person. 

 

    It was he himself that he despised. 

 

—

    “Sehun? What the hell are you talking about?”

 

    Sehun offered silence. 

 

    “And who’s that I hear? Doesn’t sound very feminine.”

 

    Lu Han had his face covered over on the sofa. 

 

    “Who is it, Sehun?” But of course she was the one who had called Lu Han’s cellphone.

 

    Sehun’s voice stuck in his throat. The problem was, he’d nothing to be afraid of. She wasn’t going to impale him. She wasn’t going to do anything. 

 

    Was he prepared to lose her— to really lose her— to be the reason she was lost? Was he prepared to step forwards and be the catalyst? 

 

    “It’s nobody, Joo,” he said, because it was he who gave nicknames and who talked in an incontestable baritone. She was cooler than he was and yet she was reduced often to shrillness, though maybe it was actually a raising up, considering it gave her considerable power. 

 

    “Nobody,” she repeated. “That’s good. It’s good to know you’re still faithful, though I don’t know, Sehun, I think you’ve become too bold too late.”

 

    “What do you mean, Joo?”

 

    “I don’t know, Oh. I think I’m getting married. I won’t be running away. Not like you. Not that quick. I’ve nowhere to go, unlike you, whose groom hated him enough to leave too. But you had him then and you have him now, and I’ve nowhere to go.”

 

    “Come to me?” Sehun asked, testing it on his tongue, not sure what it would do. 

 

    He noted Lu Han’s shift in form, from defeated to stiffened. His eyes peeked gold between his fingers. 

 

    “Is that what you want, Sehun? Because I won’t be running away. But you know I can’t deny you when you say please. So don’t do it. Don’t say please.”

 

    Sehun scoffed. Catalyst or not, he wasn’t blunt. What pleasure did she derive from keeping him clawed and strung, refusing to stake claim on him or to let him go? It was cruel. 

 

    “Who do you think I am?” he asked coldly. “Do you think I’m your toy, Joohyun?”

 

    “Toy?” 

 

    “You’re a bitch,” he spat, closing himself in the bedroom, away from Lu Han and Lu Han’s soft ears. “That’s what. You’re just a bitch. You called to what? To tell me what? That you’re getting married? You’ve told me that before. What, are you waiting for a response? Want me to jump in a fucking plane and come crawling back to you? 

 

    “So who’s the guy?” he continued, riled. “Wait— let me guess. Chanyeol. You’re gonna run him—“

 

    “It’s not Chanyeol,” Joohyun interrupted disgustedly. 

 

    “Who cares? Why are you calling me? Aren’t you getting married? Why won’t you just fuck off already?”

 

    Joohyun’s breathing was uneven.

    

    “Do you want me to fuck off?” she asked, weirdly choked. “Do you really want me to? Because I’m at the airport, in Paris.”

 

—

 

    Leave it to Joohyun. 

 

    Was he supposed to protect Lu Han or let her see him? She’d come all the way just for him. 

    

    But what about Lu Han?

 

    The boy was lying on the armchair, legs flung over the side, head tipped back. He watched the ceiling motionless, but every once in a while he’d swallow and Sehun saw the bobbing of his  delicate throat and he didn’t know what to do. It was hard to leave Lu Han, who was so vulnerable and needy and still the whole sun in one-hundred-and-seventy-something centimeters, a height Lu Han had claimed, that Sehun didn’t believe. 

 

    His fingers were pale against the dark of Sehun’s dress shirt— the one he was wearing and the one that sloped off his shoulders to cover his fingertips unless he dragged it back over his elbows. That didn’t mean his shoulders weren’t left bare or that Sehun wouldn’t be able to see the signature of his teeth riding over the boy’s collarbone. 

 

    His joints were knobby sometimes but Sehun liked that too— how there was some masculinity to balance the seraphic qualities the rest of him emanated.

 

    Even his tears were beautiful, glistening against his skin, making trails in erratic paths. Sehun would have liked to lap them up in understanding that it was the closest to holy water he’d ever get. 

 

    But he had to go. He was never a catalyst, just the substrate that everyone else directed and controlled. 

 

    “Have a safe trip,” Lu Han called after him, legs now pulled up so his toes curled into the cushiony seat. “Wherever you’re going.”

 

    Sehun wanted to yank him by the straying lapels on his shirt and kiss him until he was bruising. 

 

    He stopped at the door, eyes roaming once more over Lu Han’s frame. “Goodbye.”

 

•

 

    Lu Han didn’t know if Sehun would come back. He couldn’t even hope, because that was messed up. That was messed up to himself and to Jongin. 

 

     _Wanting a straight man_ , he scoffed. Jongin would scoff too. 

 

    He was beginning to feel unreservedly cold. Sehun’s scrutiny had always been smoldering, heating him from his core to the tips of his hair. Without it, he was trembling, ever so slightly. 

 

—

 

    It was withdrawal, and it crashed upon him a tidal wave of rejection, dejection, and hopelessness. 

 

—

 

    Coffee? He swung his legs to stand against gravity and let it take his arms, which hung. 

 

    Just coffee. 

 

    His almost dropped the cup.

 

    Lu Han would go to sleep.

 

•

 

    She wasn’t as beautiful as he remembered. She smiled, yes, but Sehun didn’t understand why she was there. 

 

    “Why are you here?” he asked.

 

    “Why are _you_ here? I thought you were too good for me.”

 

    “I don’t know.”

 

    “Me neither,” she responded, reaching for his fingers. “It just felt right.”

 

    He allowed her cold hand to lie against his before removing it, uncomfortable with a feeling he’d once cherished. 

 

    “What about your marriage?” He swallowed, afraid of her answer. He didn’t know what he wanted to hear— he was fearful either way. 

 

    She shrugged. “What do you think, Sehun? He makes me happy. He makes me laugh.”

 

    “I know.”

 

    Sehun had been there, in his dream, and he’d watched her grow young without him. So why was she here? Back with him?

 

    “Old habits die hard,” she said, teetering with the duffle she’d stuffed silly— the one Sehun still hadn’t offered to carry, but she was evidently being nice. “You’re my habit. We function a certain way and that way’s addictive. For me. You’re stronger than I am, aren’t you? Not only can you leave your habits, you can become a—“

 

    “Don’t say the word,” Sehun warned, not in the humor for cringing.

 

    “A _something_ ,” Joohyun offered, pacifistically. “Are you going to take my fucking bag or have you really become a pansy?”

 

    “Pansies are flowers,” Sehun mused, recollecting the hours Lu Han had spent informing him in the excuse of putting him to sleep. Somehow some things had stuck.

 

    “They’re also people like you.” She held out her bag and Sehun took hold of it, wondering if she’d piled it with rocks, and knowing Joohyun, deciding she had. “People who fucking dump their girlfriends for guys that look like something had defected in making them.”

 

    “What?” Sehun said, not really in a question, smile frozen on his face.

 

    “He looks so androgynous it’s disgusting,” Joohyun said, her tone freezing over and yet warming up, as if she’d been waiting to say this. “How do you kiss that?”

 

    Sehun sized her up. “How does anyone kiss a mouth as foul as yours?” He stopped halfway over the crosswalk, causing waiting cars to begin honking angrily. He took his time.

 

    “Now listen, Joo. Talk shit about Lu Han again and I’m flinging your bag of rocks into a dumpster or the ocean or at your fucking head.”

 

    She stared at him with a lower lip begging to pull her mouth wide open. 

 

    Sehun continued with his original pace and she rushed after, apparently shocked. 

 

    Sehun had never been good with standing up to her. Sure, he’d thrown insults all the time, but he’d never defended someone else. Because defending the person Joohyun hated put you in a whole new category of too-far-gone. If she wasn’t after you, it was best to take cover. 

 

    She was small in frame, a head and shoulder shorter than Sehun, and visually stunning. But Sehun didn’t see it anymore. He didn’t know why he’d come.

 

    Maybe he’d needed to confirm that he didn’t want her any longer. Maybe he’d needed to have his closure— he wasn’t going to look back anymore and think, _What if I had stuck with Joohyun?_ He’d come like a robot, out of habit, but she wasn’t his habit. He was developing new habits, good habits.

 

    So it was done, and he was ready to go back to Lu Han, but her bags were already in a taxi and God knew why she knew which hotel they were staying at. 

 

    She was glancing down at her phone over and over like her whole world belonged inside of it. 

 

    “Really just came to mess with me, didn’t you?” Sehun asked. “Because you obviously care more about whoever lives in your cellphone.”

 

    “I’m _marrying_ him. We’re not all like you, hating the guy we’ve gotta marry.”

 

    “I don’t hate him anymore.”

 

    “And you haven’t got to marry him anymore either. You two pissed your parents off. Now if you want him they probably won’t let you have him.”

 

    Sehun sighed defeatedly. Why was his life so fucking complicated?

 

    “Why so upset? I thought he was _nobody_.”

    

    “Shut up, Joohyun.”

 

•

 

    Lu Han always found solace in his sleep. One moment he was in the suite and the next he was legs-crossed in a meadow, eyes closed blissfully against sunlight. He grasped at the ground, sinking his fingers in warm earth. 

 

    “Hannie.” A hand touched his shoulder and then chin and he opened his eyes to smiling features. 

 

    “Jongin.” He immediately reached for the boy’s fingers, twining them in his own. He took a look at his Jongin’s face, finding it overwhelmingly youthful. “You’re still seventeen.”

 

    “And you’ve grown,” Kim Jongin responded warmly. “But not too much. Almost taller than me now.”

 

    “You can tell?” Lu Han asked, leveling his shoulders. Jongin laughed, and it was rich, like the chocolate Sehun had once brought him. His shoulders slumped then. 

 

    “Hannie,” Jongin tipped up chin. “Do you seriously think I’d ever ask that of you?”

 

    “Ask what of me?”

 

    “The reason you continue to question yourself and him.”

 

    “Him?”

 

    “He’s not as cute as me,” Jongin said. “I hope you know that.”

 

    Lu Han laughed, and he felt the ache of it in his chest. 

 

    “If he messes with you I’m gonna come down there and set that ugly leather jacket on fire. The rest of his stuff too. He can walk around naked.”

 

    “Sehun would probably pull that off,” Lu Han responded, earning a squinty glare from his former boyfriend. He felt suddenly ashamed. “I’m sorry.”

 

    “I’m playing.” Jongin’s touch was warm and familiar, and Lu Han leaned into it, nostalgia overcoming him. 

 

    “What do I do?” he asked.

 

    “You continue being Lu Han. You let go of me. Let me _really_ regret it, Lu, leaving you. You haven’t let me yet. And that’s what hurts more. I want to wish I was the one to marry you and hold your hand wherever you go. I want to need it with my whole heart. I want to feel my heart bleed.”

 

    “You’re a masochist,” Lu Han said decidedly. 

 

•

 

    “You’ve been treating him well,” Joohyun commented, reveling in the buzz of the palatial lobby. “Really well for a nobody.”

 

    “He’s been treating me,” Sehun corrected, ignoring Joohyun’s scornful expression. “I don’t have my credit cards.”

 

    She waved him off, stepping into an elevator. Sehun swiped his room key before punching at a number. They were near the top. 

 

    “You’re gonna be nice,” he said. “Because if you’re not nice, you’re gonna regret it. He’s not like us, Lu Han. He’s better. I came for you but I shouldn’t have. He’s better than the both of us.”

 

    “Oh, shut up.”

 

    He led her down the hall, stopping at the door, despite itching to be inside and near Lu. “The sofa can be a pull-out bed.”

 

    “Who’s sleeping there?”

 

    “Me,” Sehun said, then not missing a beat, “Are you serious?”

 

    “I don’t do pull-out beds.”

 

    “Then leave. Who asked you to stay overnight?”

 

    He cracked open the door, peering in to a room washed rosy pink by the setting sun. He didn’t see Lu Han where he’d left him, in the living room. He didn’t see Lu Han in the kitchen either. He was heading to the bedroom when he had to take three steps back, because the boy afraid of heights was sitting on the balcony edge by himself, fourteen stories up, and Sehun could’ve sworn he was swaying a little.

 

    “Lu,” he said, entwining the boy quickly in his grasp, resisting the slight jump Lu Han made. “What’re you doing?”

 

    Lu Han pulled in a soft gasp when Sehun’s mouth pressed against his freezing shoulder. 

 

    “What’re you doing? Aren’t you scared of heights?”

 

    “I’m happy you’re here,” Lu Han murmured. “I was scared you’d leave.”

 

    “Me too,” Sehun admitted quietly, twisting Lu Han around and setting him on his feet. Joohyun had followed Sehun in, and Lu Han, seeing her, frantically gathered his collar around his neck, but Joohyun’s eyes had already narrowed. 

 

    Sehun fixed her with his own glare, folding his arms over Lu Han’s shoulders, muttering in his ear. 

 

    “I’ll get rid of her.”

 

    Lu Han shifted his weight onto his heels, rocking into Sehun, before nodding and smiling at Joohyun kindly. 

 

    Her expression softened for a moment, but it didn’t deter her. “So you’re the one who stole my boyfriend.”

 

    Lu Han was a little stiff then and Sehun loosened his grip, allowing the boy to wander past Joohyun into the living area. He let go of the fabric bunched in his hand and his shoulders stood proud, glowing despite being marred. His legs were smooth and bare, too, under the length of Sehun’s shirt, only allowing a flash of his shorts here and there. 

 

    Joohyun ogled and Sehun was smug. 

 

    “My husband's sexier than yours.” 

 

    He nudged her on, satisfied. Only Lu Han could manage to be provocative when he was only trying to make a cup of coffee for his guest. 

 

    “Do you like espresso?” Lu Han asked. “Because if you don’t then I can order some or I can go down and fetch some for you—“

 

    “Looking like that?” 

 

    “Oh, no.” Lu Han snatched up a pair of pants left strewn on the rug. Right by a curled belt— Sehun’s belt. He managed a blush as Joohyun noticed and picked it up. 

 

    “Didn’t I give you this?” she asked, turning to Sehun. “And, now that I think about it, that shirt he’s wearing too?”

 

    Sehun smiled jeeringly. “What haven’t you given me, Joo?”

 

    “Okay, I’ll be back,” Lu Han interrupted, buttoning his or Sehun’s or Joohyun’s shirt to its collar. 

 

    “Why don’t I come with?” Sehun asked, not wanting to be left alone with Joohyun. 

 

    “Oh, no, it’s—“

 

    “You won’t know what to order,” Sehun argued. “I know what she likes.”

 

    “What’m I gonna do here all alone?” Joohyun demanded. 

 

    “I don’t fucking know."

 

    “You can join too,” Lu Han offered and Sehun groaned. 

 

—

 

    He and Joohyun seemed to be communicating telepathically— or that’s what Sehun hoped anyways. Otherwise he was just straining himself looking at her godforsaken face. Lu Han stood facing the doors of the elevator, hands folded in front of him, the image of sainthood, despite the fact that he’d caused a war between two very powerful people. Maybe that made him the most powerful. 

 

     _You’re going to fucking leave,_ Sehun sent in waves of anger, frowning as vehemently as he could. 

 

     _Not yet,_ he thought she taunted him. _You can’t make me._

 

Lu Han glanced back at them hesitantly before stepping out into the lobby. The area buzzed with activity, everyone glittering in anticipation of approaching night.

 

    Lu Han, though he shimmered as much as the rest of them, and though he was cut from the same cloth, was dressed too messily to blend in and have his hands kissed and be invited up to a rich monsieur’s room. 

 

    Joohyun, on the other hand, was drawn in immediately, abandoning Sehun by the patch of his shirt he had no idea she’d been holding onto. She didn’t so much as wave goodbye, but the men watched her disappear. 

 

    “No more coffee,” Lu Han said. “I wanted coffee.”

 

    “You drink too much coffee,” Sehun responded, prompting him back towards the elevator. “Let’s be alone.”

 

    Lu Han dropped his head onto Sehun’s chest as soon as the doors closed and they were alone. 

 

    “Sehunnie,” he said, almost whimpering. “Why’d you bring her? Why would you bring her?”

 

    “I didn’t want to. I tried not to. I’m sorry.”

 

•

 

    Sehun was different. His eyes reflected differently. He walked differently. He talked differently. Suddenly he was the kind of person who played with things for the hell of it. He made bets and gambled and told people the things he did late at night when he knew people were watching. 

 

    Lu Han didn’t know if he liked it. 

 

    It was because of Joohyun, but Lu Han wasn’t going to kid himself. That was how Sehun would act back at home. That was how he’d always acted. Except this time, he was on Lu Han’s side. This time he was a little bit older and a little bit more sensitive. 

 

    It was still suffocating. 

 

    Lu Han wasn’t blind to the fact that Sehun’s gaze became more penetrating and more calculating. His mouth quirked deviously, like he would have Lu Han at Lu Han’s expense instead of his own. 

 

    Then Sehun dropped to his knees in front of the bed, sorrowful. His fingers ran over Lu Han’s feet to circle his ankles and his head was bowed. 

 

    “I don’t know why you were sitting where you were when I found you, but it scared me. Tell me you weren’t there for why I think you were.”

 

    Lu Han didn’t know why he’d climbed up there. He’d no intention of letting go, but instead he wanted to see that he could hold on. It’d terrified him out of his own breath. But he wanted to hold on. So he did. 

 

    “I told you I wanted to face my fear. Why are you scared? Don’t be scared.”

 

    Sehun wanted to argue. “It’s not as simple as that. You can’t lie to me.”

 

    “I’ll overcome my fears,” Lu Han said. “With or without you.”

 

—

 

    The day had seemed to exert itself on Sehun too forcefully, and so he grew drowsy and was soon out. Lu Han held him best he could, placing Sehun’s head on his chest and patting his back carefully. It was only a minute before he drifted off too and another minute before someone shook him awake. 

 

    Joohyun stood over him, eyes narrowed. 

 

    “How’d you get in here?” he asked, wanting to keep his voice down. Sehun was still snoozing, and both he and Joohyun eyed him warily. 

 

    “Slipped Sehun’s key out of his pocket,” she responded, waving around a white card. Lu Han frowned. 

 

    “What do you want?

 

    Joohyun blinked once, like she hadn’t expected him to have that kind of voice, and then her expression was unguarded.

 

    “I came for him,” she said. “But he seems to prefer you.”

 

    “Is this when I report to you that he’s slept with me?”

 

    “You don’t have to,” Joohyun responded, lips curling downwards. “It’s not very hard to see.”

 

    “What do you think, then? Is it as disgusting as you’ve been saying it is?”

 

    “It’s disgusting because I can’t imagine it any other way. It fits him. It’s natural, now, and nothing else is.”

 

    “Why do you want to keep him?”

 

    “Habit,” she murmured, gazing down at Sehun’s sleeping form and tentatively running a hand over his leg. “He’s my habit.”

 

    “Good habits break. Bad habits you keep?” Lu Han tightened his arms around Sehun, though he shouldn’t have been possessive. 

 

    “Tell me how easy it is to break out of form for you.”

 

    Lu Han was thoughtful. “It’s almost impossible. It takes coaxing. It takes convincing yourself there’s heaven after you die, and that you can divide yourself between two people. Will I be seventeen too?”

 

    “Seventeen,” Joohyun said. “You were seventeen? I was nineteen.”

 

    Lu Han closed his eyes.

 

    “He tries,” Joohyun said. “And I test him over and over, and I do it because he used to be so _willing_ , and that was because I was sad, and I want to convince myself that that wasn’t the reason— that it was because he loves me. I don’t know when our behavior became normal.”

 

    “And you have someone else who’s willing.”

 

    She nodded before ducking her head. 

 

—

 

    Lu Han did not think he’d ever see Bae Joohyun cry. He had half a mind to wake Sehun, but he figured Sehun would just panic and make it worse. 

 

    So he offered his palm, since Sehun was already squishing half the life out of him and he couldn’t give more, and she took it. Her hand was small and cold and Lu Han felt she was weak, no matter how tall she made herself. 

 

    He twined their fingers together, allowing her to move closer to him and kiss behind Sehun’s ear. 

 

    “That’s my favorite spot,” she informed him, voice cracked. “He’s very soft, you know. You just have to undo the damage we— _I_ did— convince him it’s okay.”

 

    Lu Han smiled. “I know.”

 

•

 

    Sehun, flipping through one of Lu Han’s flower books, came across the page for peonies. 

 

     _The Peony_ , it said, _blossoming in spring and reigning over summer, has traditionally symbolized bashfulness and compassion. Cynics would spot it for shame and indignation, but the flower is hardy and vibrant, making for good marriage and good health._

 

    Lu Han had drawn a star near the paragraph, small, neat, and important in blue. And Sehun wondered, if in another universe, Lu Han would’ve told him the flower made for the fact that Sehun was irretrievably shy around him or that they were both full of compassion or that he knew they’d have a good marriage. 

 

    He wondered, if in this universe, he could wake Lu Han up and get him to say those things. But he would be patient, because the night before, a little woozy on champagne, Lu Han had said he wanted a boyfriend before fiancé and fiancé before husband, and that Sehun couldn’t be all at once but maybe one at a time and then he asked if Sehun would like that. 

 

    Sehun had said yes, and then Lu Han had cried. Sehun still wasn’t sure what to do with his tears, so he’d kissed them off Lu Han’s face and coaxed the boy’s whimpers into moans. He was a little crazy, a little crazy for his Lu. 

 

•

 

    Sehun brought him a single flower. 

 

    “A peony,” he said, “for my petal.”

 

  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's finally finished. I'm sorry for posting so damn late— weeks late— but I grew frustrated with a certain portion of this and didn’t find the time nor the energy to correct it. I debated splitting even this one chapter into smaller portions, but ultimately decided against it, because I think that’d be almost cruel ;-; Though I could have done it. 
> 
> I might add another chapter of just notes, of things I wanted a reader to notice, but didn’t get to point out along the way. If I could, I’d probably have a running commentary going on throughout the whole damn thing. 
> 
> Thank you, to everyone who gave kudos. I haven't gotten many on AO3, but even the small numbers matter. 
> 
> Thank you, most of all, to my editor, my Kawther, who edits but doesn’t edit, who understands the space I need as a writer to grow and understand based on my own terms, and not anybody else’s; who gives me the best support in the world; and who knows me and my characters like nobody else. I love you.

**Author's Note:**

> I've been working on this for several months now. Thank you to whoever's read this far. I would love to hear your thoughts on this so far, so please comment ;-;
> 
> You can find me on Twitter at @princeshixun. 
> 
> I'll be updating again soon!


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